


Ryder Rewritten

by mhskyler



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Interspecies Relationship(s), Post-Canon, but angst and drama and action mostly, fluff at some point too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:34:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mhskyler/pseuds/mhskyler
Summary: It's been four months since the events of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and everything is finally going well for the Initiative and the angara. Sara Ryder and the Tempest crew are tasked with taking out the remaining kett bases, but during a what was supposed to be a routine mission, everything goes wrong once again, and now the Tempest crew is suddenly without a Pathfinder. Can the squad fix everything and get her back? Also where is Scott?





	1. Overwrite

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I had a dream about this thing like two months after the release of ME:A and I've been writing this story ever since. Meaning that I have the middle part figured out but not the ending or the beginning. But now this is the beginning! Progress! And I will get to the end one day too! Hope you enjoy!

“Kett coming from the left!” Liam had barely finished his announcement on the comm when it was followed by the _thump_ of a biotic combo and Peebee’s laughter.

“Not anymore!”

“Great job,” Sara grinned, going through the files on the kett console in front of her with SAM’s help. “Core, everything alright on your side?”  

“We’ve taken down three of the generators,” Cora’s voice answered. “One left. No kett in sight.”

“Weird. I mean, good, but weird. Still, better stay alert for now.”

“Copy that,” Cora agreed.

“Anything new, Jaal?” Sara asked, her eyes leaving the kett console only for a second. While the rest of the squad was scattered around the building, Jaal was guarding the door behind Sara, rifle in hand.

“Still clear. This is much easier than I expected,” Jaal noted with slight disbelief.

“Yeah, I know,” Sara nodded. “Maybe the kett have finally learned their lesson and are leaving us alone?”

Jaal snorted. “Unlikely, but that would be a refreshing change, yes.”

Four months had passed since the fall of the Archon. Work on the Meridian was proceeding smoothly, the outposts were flourishing, and the Initiative and the angara worked together for a peaceful, united cluster. Even the former Initiative exiles were no longer actual outcasts; under the leadership of Reyes Vidal, they had begun to improve their relations with the Initiative. After the horrible start in Andromeda, everything seemed to have finally fallen into place. There were still some kett stragglers, sure, but that just meant the Pathfinder team hadn’t been forced to retire yet. That was their new job description: help the outposts and the angara while taking out the remaining kett bases. The latter was also the objective of their current mission. Squad Alpha – Cora and Drack – was taking out kett shield generators outside the base, while Squad Bravo – Liam, Peebee, and Vetra – held the kett at bay. Sara and Jaal – the self-proclaimed ‘best squad’ (Squad Omega was the actual name) – had sneaked in to extract info from the main console while the kett were busy. That was usually the easiest way to find other kett outposts: tap straight into their data and see what you can find. It was a routine mission, nothing special. Even less than nothing, actually, considering the small amount of resistance they had encountered so far.

“Last generator down,” Cora announced. “Still no kett activity on our side. Liam?”

“All clear here.”

“Record time. Great job, everyone,” Sara smiled, even if they couldn’t see her. “SAM, think we got what we came for?”

“I have confirmed three kett outposts in the cluster, Pathfinder. I do not think there is sufficient data on this console for a fourth match.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sara mumbled to herself before switching back to the comm. “Alright, everyone, we’re done with the console. Last thing to do is to get to the – “

There was suddenly a loud crash right above the building, and for a few seconds the entire room was shaking. But it was nothing compared to the ear-splitting noise that followed. It was a horrible screeching sound that made both Sara and Jaal flinch.

“What the hell is that?!” Sara tried to yell over the sound, covering her ears with one hand and grabbing her rifle with the other. “SAM?”

“I – th – k –“ SAM’s voice was barely more than static, even on the inside of Sara’s head.

“SAM?” Sara tried again, hoping that the issue was caused by the deafening sound and nothing else. The memories of Meridian and the Archon were trying to remind her of their existence, but she refused to panic. _Not yet. Not now. Not in the middle of kett base_. “SAM, are you okay? SAM! Say something!”

Nothing. Even the static was gone. Ignoring the screeching, there was just silence inside her head. The same kind of silence Sara had faced right… before…

“Look at me, Sara,” Jaal’s voice snapped Sara out of her thoughts. She hadn’t even realized that he had moved closer and placed his hand on her arm. To say that he looked worried would have been an understatement. He’d been like that ever since Meridian and the Archon; overprotective, concerned about everything, the whole stress-filled package. Sara couldn’t really blame him, considering that Meridian had been the _third_ time she had died – third time she came back, too, but still. He had been getting better about it lately – and by that Sara meant that Jaal no longer followed her around all day every day – but apparently this brought back some traumatic memories for him as well.

“Sara,” Jaal said again, and Sara blinked once, twice, trying to regain some sense of herself. SAM was still quiet. It felt wrong. It felt unnatural. There was only the horrid screeching. _What is that noise?_ “SAM is not responding to you either?”

Sara shook her head. “No, I – “

“Ryder!” Liam’s voice yelled through the comm. “Kett ships inbound! Like, a lot of them! We’re about to get swarmed!”

“Same thing here,” Cora echoed. “What do we do, Ryder?”

“Fall back to the Tempest,” Sara ordered, now grabbing her rifle with both of her hands. SAM going quiet was scary, but the kett were definitely something she had learned to deal with. “We’ll meet you there. And… SAM isn’t responding, so we’re on our own.”

“What?!” Liam shrieked almost as loudly as the horrible sound. _Seriously, where is that coming from?_ “Are you okay? Still alive?”

“No, I’m lying dead on the ground.” Sara tried to joke about it – ‘tried’ being the operative word. It didn’t seem to work.

“But – “

“I’m fine. Look, we can talk about this back at the Tempest. Fall back. Now.”

“Too late!” Peebee interrupted. “They’re here!”

“Shit,” Sara muttered. “Alright, you know the deal! Sweep as you go but regroup at the Tempest!”

“Copy that!” Cora confirmed, followed by a “understood!” from Liam.

“I knew this was going too well,” Jaal sighed as he followed Sara out of the main console room. The screeching noise was slightly quieter in the hallway, but it was still there. “And that sound is like needles in my brain.”

“Where do you think it’s coming from?” Sara asked, running back the same route they had taken earlier to get inside. She couldn’t see any kett yet, but there was definitely a gunfight going on outside.

“I have no idea. I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s unnerving.”

“Yeah, I know, I – “

“Pathfinder.” SAM. It was SAM’s voice. Not static, no screeching, just SAM. Sara was so relieved she almost stopped running for a second.

“SAM, welcome back! Is everything alright? What happened?”

“My apologies, Pathfinder.”

“Huh? No, it’s fine, but – “

Sara never got to finish her sentence when a head-splitting, stabbing pain shot right through her brain. With a scream, she fell to her knees, her rifle crashing against the floor as she clasped her head with her hands. Her ears were ringing, almost like the earlier screeching but times ten, and when she tried to open her eyes, all she could see was white dots. Jaal was saying something, probably, but she couldn’t make out the words. _It hurts. It hurts it hurts make it stop hurting not again not again not again_

The return of the screeching noise was the last thing Sara’s brain registered before she passed out.

 

Jaal felt like he was living through one of his nightmares. The constant, reoccurring nightmares where they’re back at Meridian, SAM goes silent, and Sara falls to the ground, unconscious, unresponsive, not breathing, and the doors are locked, and there is no way out, and Peebee is yelling, and Jaal is banging at the stupid door, and –

“Sara, _taoshay_ , Sara, please,” Jaal begged, holding her unmoving body in his arms. He had made it his personal mission to learn everything about human physiology after the Meridian incident, so this time he at least knew how to check that she was alive. Her heart was beating. She was breathing. She wasn’t dead this time – not yet, at least. But she also wasn’t responding, not reacting in any way to anything he did. “Sara, please, open your eyes. SAM? SAM, are you there?”

Nothing. Complete silence. Sara was silent, SAM was silent, even the _skutting_ screeching had stopped.

“Ryder?” Cora’s voice suddenly called through the comms, accompanied by a mixture of gunfire and biotics. “We’ve regrouped with Liam’s squad. Ryder, come in, what’s your status?”

“Sara’s down,” Jaal managed to swallow. He wanted to cry – that was the only natural reaction in this situation – but he knew that would only make things worse. He had to stay calm and get Sara safely out of here. To Lexi, to the Tempest, so that they could help her. “SAM is not… and Sara is… she isn’t moving, but she is alive, and I… I don’t know…”

“What? What happened?”

“I don’t know, SAM came back online, only for a second, but then Sara just fell down and screamed and I… She won’t open her eyes, and…”

“Dammit. _Dammit_. SAM?” Cora tried as well, but the results were the same. Silence. “SAM! How did this mission suddenly just – Okay, no, we have to stay calm. This isn’t like Meridian. It can’t be. Where are you, Jaal?”

“In… in the corridor to the left from the main console room.”

“Are there any kett in there?”

“No. Not at the moment, at least.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s good. Take Sara and start heading towards the main exit. I’ll send in Liam and Peebee to make sure you won’t run into any enemies.”

Jaal took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Understood.”

After reattaching Sara’s fallen rifle to her armor, Jaal lifted her gently up on his arms, careful to support her head and neck. Human necks were so thin and fragile even at the best of times, and it got even worse when they were unconscious. The physiology guides he had gone through had said that just one wrong move could snap a human’s neck, killing them instantly. He hadn’t slept properly for a week after reading that.

Even if this situation had suddenly gone from a routine mission into nightmare material, Jaal considered himself lucky that he didn’t run into any kett as he navigated the hallways to the main exit. Being ambushed while carrying an unconscious Sara to safety would have been the last straw. Then he would have definitely started crying. After murdering every single kett in the building, of course.

Jaal had already made it through at least two different hallways and three doors without running into anyone when he heard footsteps around the corner. _Someone is running_. Perhaps Jaal had spoken too soon. Perhaps ‘luck’ had made it its personal mission to spit in his face today. If it was the kett, Jaal would have to put Sara down and get his gun, but the frail human necks –

“Jaal!” Liam’s voice suddenly called, and Jaal breathed out in relief. Luck wasn’t against him after all. “Jaal, is that you?!”

“I’m here!” Jaal yelled back, hastening his steps until he finally saw Liam and Peebee running towards him. They were both holding their guns and covered in brownish green kett blood, so they had definitely seen more combat that day than Jaal.

“Are you okay?” Liam asked when they reached Jaal, and when his eyes fell down to Sara, he sighed. “Are you _okay_?”

“Dammit, Ryder,” Peebee mumbled. “I’m having some serious flashbacks right now.”

“We have to get out of here,” was the only thing Jaal could say. This was not the time for anything else.

“Agreed,” Liam nodded. “The others are waiting at the exit. Peebee, take the front, I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on us.”

“Got it,” Peebee nodded, already heading back the same way they had come. “Follow me, Jaal. And you’d better hang in there, Ryder.”

They had barely managed to reach the end of the corridor when they already ran into two kett Chosen. They were no match for Peebee and her biotics, though; her Shockwave turned the kett into smears on the wall before they could fire a single shot. Jaal glanced down at Sara, but there was no change in her condition. If Jaal hadn’t known better, she would have almost looked like she was asleep. Eyes closed, steady breathing, relaxed muscles; the only difference was that she wouldn’t wake up.

Okay, maybe Jaal’s “glance” was a bit more than a glance. He was looking at Sara so intently that he almost ran into Peebee when she suddenly stopped. Before Jaal could ask what was wrong, she yelled “nobody move!” and covered them all with a biotic field. Half a second later two kett Anointed jumped down from a gaping hole in the wall and opened fire on them. Jaal instinctively flinched, but Peebee’s barrier held. Barely.

“Liam,” she groaned, obviously in pain, and from the corner of his eye Jaal saw Liam leaping forward with omni-blades in hand.

“On it!”

As soon as the Anointed began reloading their weapons, Liam left the protection of the biotic field and slammed his omni-blades right through the kett shields, overloading them instantly. As they staggered back from the shock, Peebee pushed back the barrier and collapsed it right on top of them. And just like that, Peebee and Liam had a few new blood stains on their clothes. Despite it all, Jaal couldn’t help but wonder how their former bickering had turned into this seamless cooperation.

“Still alright?” Liam turned around to look at Jaal, and after a quick glance – this time it really was just a glance – at Sara, he nodded.

“Come on, the exit isn’t far,” Liam sighed, pulling back his blades. “Hear that? Gunfire. _Our_ gunfire. I think we should make a run for it.”

“Yeah, that barrier took… definitely took a toll on me.” Peebee tried to steady her breathing. “I’d rather not pull that off again. Let’s get going.”

They were right; the exit really was only one more hallway away. As Liam opened the final door, the first thing Jaal saw was a Fiend collapsing to the ground in front of Drack and his shotgun.

“A Fiend?!” Peebee shrieked. “They had a Fiend?!”

That caught everyone’s attention; Cora, Vetra, and Drack all turned to look at Jaal and the others while a pile of kett lay dead at their feet. They hadn’t been exaggerating; this really was more kett than Jaal had seen in months.

“ _Dead_ Fiend,” Vetra corrected. “Is Ryder…?”

“She’s alive,” Jaal said. “But she needs medical attention. Right now. Have you been able to contact SAM?”

“No, he’s definitely offline,” Cora sighed. “But that can wait, let’s get Sara to the Tempest and – “

Cora went instantly quiet when Sara suddenly opened her eyes again. Everyone else stopped scurrying around too as they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank god,” Liam sighed, and everyone nodded in agreement. Meanwhile Sara, obviously still a bit dazed, blinked once, twice, thrice.

“Sara?” Jaal said gently. “Sara, can you hear me? Are you alright?”

The next few seconds were nothing more than a blurry to Jaal. One moment he was holding Sara on his arms, and the next he felt like all air had left his lungs. Extreme force slammed against his entire body, sending him flying until eventually he hit the kett base behind him and collapsed against it. Jaal’s vision went black for a moment when his head crashed against the metal, but when he finally got his eyes open again, his first instinct was to look for the enemy. Oddly enough, he couldn’t see any. There was only the Tempest crew, lying on the ground much like he was – hit by the same blast, undoubtedly – and in the middle of it all… Sara. She was the only one standing up straight, completely unharmed, as if she hadn’t just been unconscious. Jaal was also fairly sure she was glowing purple, like she always was when she used her biotics, but… but that couldn’t be possible. The force they’d been hit with… It couldn’t be Sara’s biotics. _That doesn’t make any sense._

“Sara, calm down,” Cora called as she tried to pull herself up on the other side of the field. She didn’t seem to be as hurt as everyone else; perhaps her barrier had protected her a little. Jaal also tried to get up like Cora had, to get to Sara if nothing else, but ended up just collapsing right back down. His head was spinning. “It’s us. Cora, Jaal, everyone. The kett are dead. Everything is fine, I promise.”

“Incorrect. The kett are not all dead,” Sara said, but there was something wrong with her voice. She didn’t _speak_ like that. She didn’t _sound_ like that; her voice had gone monotone and flat, almost mechanic. And she was still glowing. _Why is she using her biotics? What is going on?_ “In approximately two minutes, the kett reinforcements will be here. You cannot defeat both them and… and…”

“Sara?” Cora called again. “Sara, what’s wrong? Talk to me, please!”

“Get… I will – no stop it stop it _stop it_!” Sara’s hesitation turned quickly into incoherent screaming, and she fell to her knees, clutching her head – the same way she had done just before she had passed out earlier. “Get out, no, please, no. Let me go, let me, no…”

“Sara!” Cora yelled, now sprinting towards her, but Sara shook her head.

“No, don’t – don’t come any – STOP!” Sara screamed, and with a flick of her wrist, Cora was suddenly lifted into the air. Unlike before, she wasn’t thrown around; Sara just held her up with her biotics, and no matter how hard Cora struggled, she couldn’t free herself from Sara’s grasp.

“Ryder, what the hell are you doing?!” Liam, who had managed to pull himself into a strange knee-position, shouted. “That’s _Cora_! Stop it!”

She didn’t stop. Slowly but steadily, Sara stood up straight again. Instead of grasping at her own head, she extended her left arm to keep Cora in place and reached for her rifle with the right.

“Like I said, the kett reinforcements will be here soon,” Sara said, again with that strange monotone voice. The screaming had sounded like her usual self, but this didn’t. Not at all. “I need to go with them. If you stand in my way, I will be forced to eliminate you.”

“What?!” Drack snapped. “Kid, are you listening to yourself?!”

“I must be dreaming,” Vetra muttered on Jaal’s right.

“Ryder, come on!” Peebee yelled. Jaal only now noticed that her entire face was covered in blood, and this time it wasn’t the green of the kett. It was her own blood. “This isn’t funny! Stop it!”

“The Pathfinder is gone,” Sara’s monotone voice announced. “She is not in control of this body. _I_ am.”

Before anyone could say anything more, Jaal heard a similar explosion as the one that had started this entire thing. It came from the right, and when Jaal turned his head, his heart skipped a beat. The kett reinforcements. One ship, two ships, three ships – _four_ ships. Four kett ships, and Sara was… like _this_ , and they were injured, and… _Skutt_.

“Goodbye,” that horrible monotone voice said, and suddenly Cora plummeted towards the ground. However, she refused to go down that easily; there was a second flash of purple light, and with one smooth jump, Cora landed steadily on her feet. Despite the dizziness, Jaal had finally managed to get himself up as well when the first kett soldiers appeared. Chosen, Anointed, at least three Fiends… There were too many, and they were right in the open. They wouldn’t be able to handle it, not right now. And then Sara fired her gun at Cora.

“Ryder!” Liam yelled. The bullet didn’t hit – Cora’s barrier blocked it easily – but that was not the point. Sara had just shot at Cora. Or… whatever was controlling Sara’s body had. Jaal could hardly believe his eyes. He could hardly believe _anything_ at that point. _Is this real? Is this actually happening?_ “Snap out of it, Sara! Listen to us!”

She didn’t. Instead, she shot again. And again. Cora was able to dodge and block, but then the kett opened fire on them as well. On everyone but Sara. For some reason they were shooting at everyone but her, and suddenly the Tempest crew couldn’t stand around staring at Sara anymore; now they had to dodge bullets as well. _Why? How is this even possible?_ Before Jaal even knew it, they were stuck in a crossfire with no cover whatsoever in sight, and half of the Tempest squad members were still recovering from the hit – the other half seemed too shocked to actually do anything. Jaal was fairly sure he belonged into both of those categories himself.

“Fall back!” Cora yelled, still dodging Sara’s attacks. Jaal knew he should try to stop her, but his body refused to move. It was Sara, his Sara – how was he supposed to go up against her? “Get to the Tempest! Kallo, do you read me? Prepare for takeoff!”

“What?!” Jaal snapped. “But what about Sara? We can’t just leave her here! We have to help her!”

Jaal flinched in surprise when Vetra suddenly grabbed his arm.

“Jaal, that’s not Sara,” she said quietly. “That’s someone else. You heard it yourself. And we can’t help her if we die here. Come on. The kett aren’t targeting her; she’ll live. We, on the other hand…”

Vetra was right. Jaal hated it, but she was right. Sara, his Sara was not… was not there. Something had happened. He didn’t know what, but he had to find out. That’s was the only way out of this. _Find out what is wrong and fix it._

Fighting back his tears, Jaal nodded silently and began running towards the Tempest. He felt bullets beating against his shields – kett, probably, hopefully – but none of them managed to go through. On his left, Liam was half carrying, half dragging Peebee after him while Drack covered them. At the same time Sara finally got the upper hand over Cora, and she was sent flying to the ground just a few steps away from Jaal and Vetra.

“Dammit,” Cora muttered as she pushed herself back up. “Dammit, it’s the only way. I’m so sorry, Sara.”

Before Jaal could even wonder what Cora was doing, she blasted Sara with a Nova. It wasn’t enough to knock her out – her barrier took the brunt of the attack – but it was enough to upset her balance. That gave the others just enough time to get to the Tempest, Cora herself being the last one to reach the launch bay.

“Close the door!” she yelled as kett fire hammered against the ship. “Kallo, take us out of here! Now!”

“But the Pathfinder – “ Kallo’s voice came through the comms, but Cora wasn’t having it.

“NOW!”

The last thing Jaal saw before the launch bay door closed was Sara’s face as she stared up at them, but it wasn’t _Sara._ Her eyes were glassy and lifeless, just like her voice had been. That, whatever _that_ was, was not Sara Ryder, his _taoshay_ , the love of his life. That was someone else controlling her body.

 


	2. Mutiny

The atmosphere aboard the Tempest was a mixture of confusion, fear, and sorrow. Cora could see it all around her as she applied medi-gel to the two dozen bruises she’d gotten from none other than Sara Ryder. The entire crew – except for Kallo, because someone still had to fly the ship – had gathered down in the med bay after they had safely escaped from the kett. Sadly, the med bay wasn’t exactly spacious, so most of them were actually sitting in the hallway in front of the med bay rather than inside it. Cora herself was one of those people, leaning against the cool metal wall. It helped with the pain; her left shoulder had taken the worst of Ryder’s biotics, but thankfully it wasn’t dislocated, just really sore.

“What do we do?” Liam whispered on Cora’s right. He was also sitting on the floor, but he wasn’t as badly injured as some of the others. Jaal had a concussion and was lying down in the med bay, Peebee had a massive cut in the middle of her head that Lexi was trying to patch up, and Drack had managed to break one of his prosthetics. Sara’s biotic blast – _had it been a Nova? She never used Nova_ – had been strong enough to hurt even a krogan. _A krogan_. “Cora, what do we do?”

Cora wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure what she should say or what they should do. With Ryder… gone, she was now technically the one in charge. After everything they’d gone through, it felt wrong.

“Suvi, Gil, any progress?” Cora chose to inquire instead. After hearing what had happened, Suvi and Gil had been locked up in Sara’s cabin, trying their best to get SAM back online. It wasn’t going well. Nothing was going well.

“This is insane,” was the response that came from Gil. “Seriously, I don’t understand. Cora, SAM isn’t offline. He’s just… blocking everything somehow. Why would he do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“So we still can’t talk to SAM?”

“Nope.”

“Dammit,” Cora muttered. “I want a full report once you’re done.”

“That could take a while,” Suvi mumbled.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Peebee shrieked in the med bay. “That hurts, Lexi!”

“It’ll hurt even worse if you don’t stop moving,” Lexi sighed. “Drack, stop touching the wound. Jaal, no, you’re not allowed to stand up. No, get back to the – ugh, you’re all impossible.”

“We have to do something,” Jaal – who was now standing in the doorway despite Lexi’s protests – said. “We have to save Sara.”

“I know, but how?” Cora asked. “We don’t know what’s happened or how to fix it. Gil and Suvi are trying to figure it out, but…”

“I couldn’t reach Scott,” Vetra announced as she reappeared in the new hang-out hallway. “At all. On any channels. Do you… do you think the same thing that happened to Sara could have happened to him as well?”

Cora’s eyes widened in shock. She hadn’t even considered that. Whatever was controlling Sara… did it have access to Scott’s brain as well? But they’d been almost a cluster apart when everything had happened. Scott was back at the Hyperion, trying to get a clearance from Harry to use his biotics again. _Desperately_ trying. But if Vetra couldn’t reach him…

“Maybe he’s just asleep?” Liam suggested, but Vetra shook her head.

“It’s the middle of the day back on Meridian. Scott would definitely be spending his time trying to prove he’s fit for combat instead of sleeping all day.”

“Do you think we should tell Tann and the others?” Liam asked, looking at Cora.

“We should, but I have no idea what to say,” Cora sighed. “This is a nightmare. When they hear that Ryder… or when the angara hear…”

“I’ll tell Evfra,” Jaal said. “He’ll listen to me. I’ll make him listen.”

“You’d better hurry then,” Drack cut in from the med bay. “If any of those idiots see Ryder like that before they hear it from you, they won’t listen to a word you say.”

“He has a point,” Vetra said a bit reluctantly. “If they do see Ryder like that… It doesn’t look good. _We_ know what happened, we were there, but anyone else? It’ll look like…”

“Like she’s the enemy,” Cora concluded with a grimace. “Dammit. _Dammit_. Okay, fine, I’ll go contact Tann right now. Jaal, you do the same with Evfra. We need to figure this out.”

“He’s supposed to be lying down!” Lexi protested, but Jaal wasn’t listening. As Cora tried to ignore the pain in her shoulder and climb up to the conference room, Jaal headed straight to the tech lab to find his own computer.

“What about the rest of us?” Liam yelled after them.

“Keep trying to find Scott!” Cora yelled back. “He needs to know what happened!”

 

 

“Keep trying to find Scott,” Vetra sighed. With Cora and Jaal gone and Peebee and Drack still being patched up, she and Liam were now the only ones left in the hang-out hallway. “Well, I’ve tried everything I can think of. Please tell me you have some amazing new idea for contacting Scott.”

“Hmm.” Liam looked thoughtful. It happened every now and then; it wasn’t always ‘act first, think later’ with him. “Did you try to contact anyone else on Meridian?”

“No, I didn’t want to worry anyone else. No need to cause a cluster-wide panic before we know what’s going on, right?”

“Fair enough,” Liam nodded. “But what about just calling Sid and asking if she’s seen Scott? She’s still on Meridian, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, I guess we could try that. Nothing weird about asking for Scott; we don’t have to tell her the specs yet.” While she spoke, Vetra was already calling Sid on her omni-tool. Even if Scott refused to pick up, Sid _always_ answered when Vetra called her.

“Vetra! Vetra, oh I’m so glad you called!” Sid practically shrieked before Vetra could even open her mouth. “I was literally just about to – Have you heard? I’m fine, don’t worry, I got out early, but – “

“What?” Vetra interrupted. _In addition to worrying about Ryder, now I have to worry about Sid too?_ “Heard what? Got out early from where? What are you talking about?”

“What? No one has told you guys? Ryder is the Pathfinder, I thought for sure… Is Ryder there? Are you still on your mission?”

“No, Ryder is… busy right now,” Vetra grimaced. “I’m here with Liam. Sid, just tell me what happened.”

“The kett took over Meridian! Or I guess just the Hyperion, but since almost everything on Meridian is also on the Hyperion, it’s same thing, but – “

“The kett what?!” both Vetra and Liam snapped in unison.

“What the hell?” Liam continued. “When did this happen? _How_ did this happen? Sid!”

“A few hours ago. I’m not really sure how, it was all super weird. One second I was going through some emails from Prodromos, and the next there were red lights and alarms going off everywhere. Jenny – she’s one of the security guys – told us to get to the shuttles and evacuate immediately. I was near the launch bay, so I got out early, like I said, but it was so weird! I didn’t even see any kett until I was in the shuttle, and even then, it was like two or three ships! How could three small kett ships take over Meridian so quickly?”

“You’re right, that _is_ strange,” Vetra mumbled. “Where are you now? You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m totally fine, just confused. I’m still in the shuttle, we’re flying to the asari ark, I think? It’s still being repaired, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

“Were there any casualties on Meridian?” Liam asked. “Do you know?”

“None that I’ve heard of, no. Still weird, right? A bloodless takeover by the kett? In what universe?”

“Did you see Scott? Do you know what happened to him?”

“Scott? He left this morning, before any of this happened, didn’t he tell you? He went to Kadara. To meet with Reyes. No, he told Ryder, I’m sure he did.”

“So Scott is on Kadara? Alright, thanks for the info, Sid,” Vetra sighed. “Still doesn’t explain why he isn’t picking up, but thanks.”

“What about the Initiative brass? Tann and the others?” Liam continued. “Any news of them?”

“They weren’t on Meridian either,” Sid said. “Tann and Allison are visiting Prodromos, and Kandros and Kesh are on the Nexus.”

Liam frowned. “So who _was_ on Meridian when this happened?”

“Of the leaders?” Sid sounded confused. “Um… that one funny-sounding human, at least? He passed out when the alarms went off.”

Vetra turned to look at Liam. “You don’t think…?”

Liam made a face. “At this point, I’m _definitely_ thinking.”

“This entire thing is a mess,” Vetra sighed. “Alright, thanks for the info, Sid. Let me know if you find out anything else or if anything changes. I don’t think you should stay on the asari ark, though. Try get passage to… what’s the nearest outpost? Kadara? Try to get passage there if you can. Should be safer.”

“Yeah, okay. You keep me updated too! I want to know if anything happens!”

“You got it, Sid,” Vetra sighed, and once she had ended the call, she and Liam looked at each other.

“You go tell Cora, I’ll try to call Scott?” Liam suggested, and Vetra nodded.

“I hate this entire thing.”

 

 

Cora didn’t like Tann. Never had, never probably would. But she had never actually _loathed_ Tann, not wanted to punch him in the face. Not until now.

“You can’t be serious!” Cora all but shouted. “This isn’t Ryder’s fault! Like I just told you, we need to help her, not – “

“Pathfinder Ryder attacked you, and you have no proof that she wasn’t acting. The kett didn’t fire at her, did they? Right now, we have to prepare for the possibility that Ryder has betrayed us. It is unfortunate, but – “

“This is Sara Ryder we’re talking about!” Cora snapped. “The Pathfinder who killed the Archon, saved all our arks, established the outposts? Ring any bells?”

“I do not see how that is relevant right now. You are obviously too distraught for a reasonable conversation, Lieutenant Harper. This matter is finished, for now. Like I said, the Tempest should return to the Nexus as soon as possible, since the ship is without a captain now. If you encounter Sara Ryder on your way, you are to apprehend her by any means necessary.”

“But – “ Cora never got to finish before Tann hanged up on her. That had, by far, been the worst vid call of her entire life. She wasn’t just angry; she was _furious_. Ground the Tempest? Apprehend Ryder _by any means necessary_? What the hell was Tann thinking? Despite her injury, Cora ended up punching the nearest wall, then grimacing in pain when her shoulder felt like it was on fire again.

“Let me guess: Tann didn’t take the news well?” Vetra, who had been walking up the stairs when Cora started punching things, guessed, and Cora sighed.

“That’s an understatement. We… need to talk. With the entire crew. This is…”

“Yeah, I know,” Vetra nodded. “Ryder gone, Meridian gone, and – “

“What?” Cora’s eyes widened in shock. “Meridian gone? What do you mean?”

Now it was Vetra’s turn to be surprised. “Tann didn’t tell you? Maybe he doesn’t know, though that would be… Then again… Maybe Liam was right. Call in the meeting, Cora. Call in the meeting right now.”

 

 

About half an hour later the entire Tempest crew – excluding their missing Pathfinder – had gathered in the conference room for an official team meeting. Even Kallo had stopped flying and joined them. The news had spread fast; everyone was aware of the situation with Sara, and now with Meridian as well. And if the atmosphere had been tense before, it was even worse now.

“Okay, let’s go over the facts first,” Cora began. “I’ll start. As we all know by now, something strange happened to Sara during our mission on Korvath. She passed out, and when she woke up, she had lost control of her own body. We all saw her trying to fight it, but in the end, she couldn’t. Afterwards, she attacked us with the kett and said she has to go with them. Vetra, Meridian?”

“Around the same time we were on Korvath, the kett apparently took over Meridian in a bloodless coup of some sort, as crazy as that sounds. According to Sid, no one got hurt, but Meridian was evacuated and is now controlled by the kett. Tann, however, didn’t mention this to Cora, so either he didn’t know about it or he didn’t want _us_ to know – I don’t know which one is weirder.”

“Exactly,” Cora sighed. “Liam, did you find Scott?”

“Sid said Scott travelled to Kadara earlier this morning,” Liam said. “I tried calling him – Vetra and I both did – but he’s still not picking up. I also called Reyes, but he said he hadn’t heard anything about Scott being on Kadara. So Scott is still missing and out of the loop.”

“This just keeps on getting better,” Cora mumbled. “Gil and Suvi, the report on SAM?”

“Well, it’s hard to say anything concrete without having access to… well, anything,” Suvi sighed. “But we think SAM is online and blocking us somehow. We couldn’t communicate with him in any way, but he isn’t completely dark like he was back when… well, we all know when. There is something happening, but we don’t know what.”

“If I may,” Gil cut in. “We now know that the kett took over Meridian – which includes the Hyperion and also the SAM node – around the same time Sara passed out and SAM went silent. So I think we should consider the possibility that the kett have somehow gotten access to the SAM node and that may be the cause of all this.”

“That’s possible, yes,” Cora nodded. “Alright, Jaal, what did Evfra say?”

“He was… concerned,” Jaal said hesitantly. He’d been unusually quiet for a while, though Cora couldn’t blame him. “But he believed me. He believed me when I said that Sara isn’t controlling her own body. Evfra said he’d let us handle this, but… but he also said that if Sara poses a threat to the angara, they will ‘take action’, whatever that means. I told them not to hurt her, but…”

“Let’s hope they’ll settle for capturing her,” Cora nodded. “Meanwhile, Tann wasn’t nearly as understanding. We… He told us to head directly to the Nexus so that the Tempest can be grounded. And if we meet Sara, we are to, and I quote, ‘apprehend her by any means necessary’. So, in short, Tann thinks Sara is faking it and has betrayed us, and since we could be her accomplices, we’ll probably be ‘apprehended’ too once we dock at the Nexus.”

That finally broke the scared silence as everyone started screaming over each other. Drack cursed about the ‘damned salarians’, Liam threatened to start a rebellion, Peebee screamed, and Jaal looked like he was about to start crying. Cora didn’t even try to silence them; honestly, she agreed with most of the things they were saying. Tann was wrong. The Initiative brass was wrong, just like they had been so many times in the past. _Do they never learn?_

“We can’t obey them, Cora,” Liam finally said when the uproar had somewhat died down. “If we go to the Nexus and get locked up, no one will be able to help Sara. While we’re being interrogated, they’ll try to catch Sara, she’ll resist, everyone will get hurt, nothing will work!”

“Liam’s right, this is insane!” Jaal agreed. “How can they even think that Sara would do something like this willingly? I will not let them hurt her!”

“Are we disobeying direct orders again, Cora?” Lexi asked, and Cora sighed.

“Damn right we are!” Peebee yelled. The patched-up wound on her head was starting to turn purple. _Great, now Peebee’s bleeding again._ “Right, Cora?”

“Of course we are,” Drack puffed. “It’s practically tradition by now.”

Kallo nodded eagerly. “It’s the only option when the Initiative isn’t making any sense.”

“I say we vote on it,” Cora said. “All who think we should not answer to Tann and the Initiative brass anymore – at least not until we find Sara – raise your hands.”

Every single person in the room raised their hands. The only one who hesitated a little was Lexi, but when she saw the determination in the others, she straightened her arm properly as well.

“Unanimous decision, then,” Cora smiled a little. “Good. Because if we’re going to make any sense of this situation, we all need to work together. So, a mutiny it is. We’re not going to the Nexus. Now what?”

 

__  
  



	3. Betrayal

 

Liam realized fairly quickly that agreeing to disobey Tann and to save Ryder was the easy part of the plan. The hard part was the actual _planning_ ; with so much going on, no one seemed to agree what they should be doing next. Without Ryder, Cora was technically in charge, yeah, but it wasn’t the same. The crew had been yelling at each other in conference room for ages.

“Look, this is all obviously connected to the kett taking over the Hyperion and the SAM node,” Gil argued. “So shouldn’t our first priority be going there and finding out what’s going on?”

“With Sara – or whatever is in control of her body – running around freely doing who knows what?” Vetra shot back. “What if she attacks an outpost? What if she attacks the angara? We need to find her and fix her – and if we can’t do that, we have to carefully contain her until we can help her so that no one gets hurt!”

“But getting SAM back _would_ fix her,” Suvi agreed with Gil. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about Ryder hurting anyone!”

“Any more than she already has,” Lexi reminded them. “Peebee’s wound is still bleeding, Drack’s prothesis got dislocated, and Jaal, you did have a minor concussion. If we aren’t careful, we could suffer even worse injuries.”

“It wasn’t Sara’s fault,” Jaal announced, and everyone who’d been on Korvath nodded in agreement. “We just need to be careful, that’s all. And Sara already managed to break the control over her, we all saw it! Maybe we can get her to do it again.”

“It’s risky; if we can’t do it, we’ll definitely get hurt,” Vetra sighed.

“What about Scott?” Peebee cut in. “His disappearance has to be connected to all this. We could go to Kadara and see if we can find him.”

“But we’ve had no confirmation that he even is on Kadara,” Liam said. “What if it’s just a waste of time?”

“What’s waste of time is this constant arguing,” Kallo snapped. “We need to make a decision! This helps no one!”

“Drack, you’ve been awfully quiet,” Cora noted. Drack was indeed the only one who was still sitting down and not yelling at anyone. _Maybe his age finally caught up with him?_ “What are you thinking?”

“Tann,” Drack declared.

Cora raised her brows. “Tann?”

“The only way the kett could take over the Meridian with that little effort is having someone on the inside. They had someone else doing all the work for them. It doesn’t have to be Tann. It could be anyone. But Tann didn’t say anything at all about the Initiative losing Meridian when Cora called him earlier. That’s alarming.”

“Yeah, I agree with Drack,” Liam nodded. “It definitely looks like an inside job. But ‘not telling us’ can’t be the only evidence we have against Tann, it’s not very convincing. Tann was on Prodromos; it really could be that he just didn’t know about the takeover yet, just like we didn’t.”

“That’s evidence number two,” Drack said. “None of the so-called Initiative leaders were on Meridian when the kett took over. It’s too convenient. At least one of them has to be involved. Not Kesh, though. I trust Kesh.”

“So, list of things we have to worry about: Sara, the kett, SAM, Meridian, Scott, and now the Initiative as well,” Cora grimaced. “Did I forget anything?”

“Your shoulder injury,” Lexi offered, and Cora grimaced even harder.

“Well, we already decided to mutiny, didn’t we?” Vetra tried to help. “So now we just have to decide who we trust.”

“Everyone in this room,” Liam said instantly, and everyone nodded in agreement.

“The Resistance was also willing to cooperate with us,” Jaal reminded them. “And Evfra would rather die than work with the kett.”

“Reyes and Scott are the wild cards here,” Peebee continued. “I mean, we’ve heard very little from one and nothing from the other, so they could either be on our side or against us.”

“What about the other Pathfinders?” Suvi asked.

Cora frowned. “Hard to say. They’ve all supported Ryder in the past, so it would be weird for them to turn on her now. But then again, they might not be aware of the corruption in the Initiative. Unwilling accomplices of whoever betrayed us?”

“Okay, so we trust the Tempest crew and the Resistance, while Scott, Reyes, and the other Pathfinders are sorta on a trial period,” Liam concluded. “Great. But we still don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Okay, let’s go back to the start,” Cora suggested. “Jaal, did anything unusual happen before Ryder passed out? Anything at all?”

“We were in the main console room,” Jaal began. “Then there was some sort of explosion, and this awful, deafening noise. That’s when SAM went quiet.”

“Noise?” Peebee frowned. “You mean the same one we heard in the hallway?”

“Yes, that one. It was much louder in the console room. We thought that maybe it affected SAM, but soon after we’d left, he came back online for a second. He said… He said he was sorry right before Sara… And then nothing. Just silence.”

“Do you have any idea what that noise was?” Cora asked, but Jaal shook his head.

“No, we wondered about that as well. Neither of us had ever heard anything like it.”

“We didn’t hear it on the outside,” Vetra noted, and Liam nodded.

“Yeah, you could only hear it inside the building. If it was the loudest in the console room, the source was probably somewhere near it too.”

“Gil, Suvi, any ideas?” Cora asked, and the duo turned to look at each other.

“Some sort of signal? Disruption?” Gil suggested, and Suvi nodded.

“Yeah, it could be. It could have messed up the SAM connection and Sara’s implant – that’s why it only affected her and not anyone else.”

“And the… mind control?” Kallo hesitated. “Should we call it that?”

“That can’t be from any signal alone, I don’t think.” Gil tapped his chin. “That would… oh my god. You don’t think… it was SAM controlling Ryder, was it? Because he is the only one who might be able to do something like that, but – “

“I knew it,” Lexi groaned. “I _knew_ he had too much control over Ryder.”

“But SAM would never do anything like that,” Jaal argued. “Sara trusts him, he’s saved her life more than once, it wouldn’t make any sense!”

“But it does make sense!” Gil argued. “It would make so much sense. Think about it. Someone inside the Initiative messes with the SAM node on the Hyperion. Modifies the base code or something. At the same time, the kett on Korvath use that strange signal to mess up with Ryder’s implant – probably to undo the ‘default settings’ Scott pulled off during the Archon fight, giving SAM more control over Ryder again. SAM has been hacked. And since SAM takes control over Ryder, she’s kinda been hacked as well. Neither of them would willingly work for the kett, not in a million years, but this? This makes sense, no matter how you look at it.”

Everyone was silent after that. Liam had to admit that Gil was right; it did make sense. It was almost scary how much sense it made. And it was all because someone inside the Initiative had decided to betray them. _Who in their right mind would do something like that?_

“If that is what happened…” Jaal eventually broke the silence. “How do we fix it?”

“Fixing SAM would be the best idea,” Suvi said. “But if the kett are in control of the Hyperion, it’ll be difficult to get to the SAM node.”

“It would also help if we knew what the signal that messed up Ryder’s implant actually was,” Gil added. “But to do that, we would have to return to Korvath, which is also in kett control.”

“Goddamn kett,” Liam muttered. “There has to be something we can do!”

“There is,” Cora said sternly. “But it’s risky, so we’ll all need to be on board.”

“Well, let’s hear it!” Peebee was practically jumping up and down. “What do we do?”

 

 

Cora’s plan was indeed risky, but the crew agreed that it was still the best option they had. So, four hours later, they had broken into three different groups: Squad Korvath, Squad Kadara, and Squad Tempest. Squad Korvath consisted of Jaal, Cora, and Suvi, who was doing her best trying to fly a shuttle. Their main objective was to return to Korvath in the Pfeiffer system, sneak past the kett, and gather info on the signal that had likely affected Ryder’s implant. Squad Kadara consisted of Liam and Vetra. After agreeing that Scott and Reyes were both too important to not have as allies in this, Liam and Vetra had hitched a ride from one of Vetra’s contacts to Kadara. Their objectives were to look for Scott and to determine whether Reyes could help them. Squad Tempest consisted of the remaining crew members – Kallo, Gil, Drack, Peebee, and Lexi – and as the name suggested, they remained on the ship. Their objective was probably the most dangerous of them all: distract the kett so that Squad Korvath could sneak in and out without being detected. After the squads were done with their missions, they would regroup at the Tempest and hopefully share all the new info they had managed to gather.

“This is as far as I can take us without being detected,” Suvi announced on her pilot seat. “Suddenly I’m very grateful Kallo gave me those piloting lessons after the Archon crisis. Though I do wish my first mission wasn’t this… scary.”

“You’re doing fine, Suvi,” Cora assured her. She and Jaal were at the back of the shuttle, making sure their gear was ready for infiltration. Cora almost felt like she was reliving her Huntress days, though it would have been nicer if the situation hadn’t been such an absolute mess. “Now we just have to wait for the signal from Squad Tempest.”

“What if Sara is still on Korvath?” Jaal asked quietly, and Cora bit her lip.

“Then we’ll… adapt. If we manage to get through to her and break the control, great. But no unnecessary risks. This is a recon mission, first and foremost.”

“Understood,” Jaal nodded, though Cora could see the hesitation in his eyes. She understood how he felt; she wasn’t exactly looking forward to being thrown around by Ryder again. How do you fight against someone you don’t want to hurt? Even if Ryder wasn’t in control of her body, she was still in there, somewhere. Just the thought of pulling the trigger on her was disgusting.

“Suvi, do the scanners show anything about the activity on Korvath?” Cora inquired.

“There are definitely some life signs, yes,” Suvi nodded. “Though they’re limited to the protective field around the base. Like we talked about earlier, daytime sunlight causes very high temperatures on Korvath. Even the kett can only leave the protection field during nighttime.”

Suddenly all three got a new message to their omni-tools.

“It’s from Liam,” Cora frowned. “What could he… ‘Tann did a thing. Punch him’. Oh.”

The message included a video file titled ‘the Ryder Betrayal and Meridian crisis’. It was basically five minutes of Tann denigrating Sara and telling everyone to stay away from Meridian until the situation “has been resolved”. Apparently, it was the official Initiative response to everything that had happened. In reality, it was nothing but misinformed speculation that offered no solutions whatsoever. Cora felt sick.

“How dare he?!” Jaal snapped, mirroring Cora’s own feelings about the vid. “How dare he talk about Sara like that?! This is cruel, and unfair, and absolutely deluded! Tann wasn’t at Korvath, what does he know? Nothing, and yet he claims that Ryder is _willing_ working with the kett? How could anyone think that after everything she has done?! How can he do this?!”

“If Tann really is the kett’s inside contact like Drack suspected, he’s probably covering his own tracks,” Cora muttered. “Dammit. Now the entire cluster knows about Ryder then, and even worse, they might believe Tann’s propaganda. I don’t think everyone will, Ryder has a really good reputation pretty much everywhere, like you said, but still… I never would have told them if I knew that it would lead to… Well, too late to regret it now. We’ll just have to live with this and hope that we find Ryder before anyone else does.”

“I really wish I was shooting at something right now,” Jaal growled.

“Well, you’re in luck,” Suvi suddenly said, though even her voice sounded more tense than usual. “Just got confirmation from Squad Tempest. They’re in position. Prepare for landing.”

 


	4. Scattered

“I still think this is a horrible plan,” Lexi stated for the twelfth time as Peebee and Drack were arming themselves in the launch bay. Seriously, she’d said it so often that Peebee was starting to have the line playing on repeat in her brain. “It’s been less than 24 hours since you both suffered injuries on the field. If you get hurt again – “

“Lexi, what part of ‘distraction’ don’t you understand?” Peebee cut in, checking the clips on her pistol. _Shooting some kett will definitely make me feel better about this nonsense._ She’d been pissed even before seeing the Tann vid Liam had sent them all; now she was downright angry. “We have to do this.”

“We can distract them with the Tempest!” Lexi argued. Apparently, she was too busy being worried to be angry. Peebee didn’t envy her, angry was definitely better than worried. “There is no need to – “

“It’s more efficient this way, doc,” Drack said. “Kallo can take the fire from their ships; we’ll take the fire from the ground troops.”

“Just… be careful,” Lexi sighed. “Peebee, apply medi-gel immediately if the wound opens up again. Drack, try not to punch any Fiends in the face to avoid any more dislocations.”

Peebee rolled her eyes. Honestly, the cut on her head didn’t even hurt, it wasn’t that deep. The bleeding was merely annoying at worst. “Sure thing, _mom_.”

“ETA two minutes,” Kallo’s voice echoed through the comm. “Prepare for drop-off.”

“Roger that,” Drack answered. Everything seemed so… routine-like to him that Peebee couldn’t even tell which prothesis he had dislocated earlier. Drack just grabbed his shotgun, business as usual, and turned to look at Peebee. “You ready, kiddo?”

“Definitely,” Peebee nodded eagerly. “Keep them busy, Kallo!”

“Hey, I’m an important part of this team too!” Gil cut in from the engine room.

“Keep the engine from exploding, Gil!” Peebee added cheerfully.

“Call for a retreat if anything goes wrong,” Lexi yelled after them before returning to the med bay. “I’ll be on standby.”

“You got it, doc,” Drack promised, and he and Peebee took their positions near the launch bay door. When the door finally opened, Drack counted to three, and they jumped.

 

 

“Goddamn Tann,” Liam muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in the cargo bay of a small freighter. The ship belonged to a salarian called Ilaw; Vetra apparently knew her through a friend of a friend. But that wasn’t important. As long as Ilaw got them to Kadara safely and quickly, it didn’t matter who she was. “Stupid, delusional, idiotic – “

“You can keep saying that, but it won’t change anything,” Vetra sighed. She was sitting on one of the cargo crates, watching as Liam continued to pace around. “The vid is out. I’m not saying that everyone will buy Tann’s stories, because they definitely won’t, but it’ll still cause confusion at best, panic at worst.”

“Goddamn Tann,” Liam repeated. It had become his new favorite phrase. “Ilaw, what’s the ETA?”

“About three more hours,” Ilaw answered from the cockpit. “Plenty of time to complain about Tann.”

Liam snorted. “You don’t like him either?”

“Please. Everyone knows Ryder is the only reason any of us are still alive. Tann spreading lies won’t change that.”

“I hope everyone else sees it that way too,” Liam sighed.

“Liam,” Vetra suddenly interrupted, sounding like she had just thought of something. “You’re a member of the original Pathfinder team, right? And with Cora being the acting captain of the Tempest, doesn’t that make you the acting XO?”

“I guess. Why?”

Vetra smirked mischievously. “Well, the XO of the human Pathfinder – even if it is the acting human Pathfinder – has _a lot_ of access codes. It would definitely upset Tann if someone used to those codes to, I don’t know, post a vid that contradicted his on the official Initiative channels.”

“Vetra, you’re a genius,” Liam grinned, and Ilaw sounded pretty excited too.

“Yeah, three hours is plenty of time to shoot a short vid! Get to work! Make my freighter the setting for the mutiny! Down with the lies! Down with the propaganda!”

“Yeah, let’s do it!” Liam was getting excited as well. “One mutiny vid coming right up! No, wait, how does my hair look?”

Vetra stared at him. “I’m a turian. Do you really want me to answer that?”

 

 

Jaal knew that the infiltration plan had worked perfectly so far. Three of the four kett ships had gone after the Tempest, and judging by the gunfire, Peebee and Drack were also handling their part of the distraction more than well. Cora and Jaal had managed to slip into the kett base through a maintenance door in the back, completely undetected, and the two kett Chosen they had found inside had been dead before they’d even noticed anything – one of the benefits of Jaal’s cloaking ability. But still, as they navigated the empty halls of the base, Jaal couldn’t help but feel anxious. One part of him was terrified of running into Sara, but the other part wanted nothing more than to see her again. _Is she still being controlled by SAM, or the kett, or whoever?_ _If she is, then… Would she really aim her rifle at me?_

It had been over a year since they had first met, Jaal and Sara. A day no one on Aya would ever forget; Sara Ryder, the human Pathfinder, walking out of a flaming ship with hands above her head, completely unarmed. Jaal had spent the following weeks wondering if he could trust her, trust any of the new aliens. Before leaving Aya, Evfra had told him to be prepared to kill Ryder if she proved hostile, and indeed Jaal had been prepared to defend his people. But then… They had saved the Moshae, together, and weeks had turned into months, and they had fought together, helped people together – angara and Initiative both –, and lived together on the same ship. And Jaal had fallen in love with her. The brave, brilliant, beautiful Sara Ryder. Jaal had told Evfra long ago that he’d made up his mind, that he’d never hurt Sara, let alone kill her, and at that point, Evfra had (reluctantly) agreed that perhaps they really could trust the human Pathfinder. That felt like a lifetime ago.

_Be strong, my darling one. We will help you._

“This the place?” Cora whispered when Jaal stopped in front of the main console room. There were two more kett in the room, Chosen and Destined, nothing Jaal and Cora couldn’t handle.

“Yes,” Jaal nodded. “I’ll go in and take out their shields.”

“Got it, I’ll rush in afterwards.”

Using his cloaking ability, Jaal snuck around the kett, careful not to make any noise. When he was close enough, he struck the Destined, completely draining its shields. Half a second later Cora stormed in with her biotics, and without their shields, the kett didn’t stand a chance. In a few moments, they were nothing more than bloodstains on the floor. _That’s for Sara, you monsters._

“Alright, we found the place,” Cora breathed as she stopped glowing purple. “I don’t see anything unusual, though.”

“Me neither,” Jaal muttered. The console room was exactly like he remembered it; basic kett machinery, nothing out of the ordinary. “Back then, the noise seemed to come from above us. The roof?”

Almost as a reflex, both Cora and Jaal looked up at the ceiling. The only suspicious thing Jaal noticed was a small window in the middle of it, but it was still better than nothing.

“Worth checking out,” Cora seemed to agree. “I think I could hover long enough with my biotics to open that window, give me a sec.”

Jaal nodded. “I’ll check the main console, maybe there’s something new in there.”

As Cora jumped up, Jaal walked over to the same console Sara had used less than 24 hours ago. Without SAM’s help, it was unlikely he would find anything useful, but it couldn’t hurt to check. _Just making sense of these things is impossible. Skutting kett language._

While Cora worked on the window, Jaal checked the latest updates on the console. There was some communication, but nothing he could understand. The only thing that did make sense to him was the timestamp; the last communications had taken place around six hours ago. _They’ve been idle ever since? Does that mean Sara is no longer here, or…? But if she isn’t here, where is she? What is she doing?_

“Jaal!” Cora suddenly called from the roof. She’d managed to get the window open and climb up. “I think I found something!”

Jaal instantly forgot about the console and used his jump-jet to join Cora on the roof. “What is it?”

Cora was on her knees – after all this time, the position still looked uncomfortable to Jaal –, examining a small black box. There were similar pieces around it, but they looked mostly broken, as if they’d been blown up. _The explosion we heard the last time? But why is that box the only one intact?_

“Looks like a device of some sort, but it’s offline,” Cora said. “At least I think it is. It’s not making any noise, or emitting heat, or anything. It just… is.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that.” Jaal frowned. “It doesn’t look like kett technology. Or angaran.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t,” Cora agreed. “Not Initiative, either. That’s… worrying.”

“Indeed.” _More pieces to the puzzle. Wonderful._ “Considering the placement, however, that thing is probably what was making that awful noise back then.”

“Yeah. I think we should take it with us, have Gil and Suvi look at it.”

“Yes, that seems like a good idea. Let’s head back to the shuttle and – “

“DRACK!” Peebee’s scream suddenly echoed from the other side of the building, and Jaal felt a chill run through his spine. The last time he’d heard Peebee scream like that Sara had _died_. To hear it again was beyond terrifying.

“It came from there!” Cora was instantly up on her feet, running towards Peebee’s voice. Jaal quickly grabbed the black box and sprinted after her. “Suvi, Suvi, do you read me? Call the Tempest for an evac, right now!”

 

 

Operation “distract the kett” had started off well. Peebee and Drack had made as much noise as possible, and soon it seemed like every kett in the building was trying to get to them. Their mistake; while Drack took most of the fire, Peebee could stand back and pick off the approaching kett with her biotics. It was good a plan, it included lots of cover and nice sightlines and everything. Well, it _was_ a good plan, until Peebee and Drack realized that they might slightly have underestimated the kett numbers. It wasn’t just a few Chosen and the occasional Anointed; no, it was also Destined and Wraiths with their stupid cloaking, and then the Fiend. The Fiend that ruined everything.

Peebee knew that the whole “time seemed to slow down” thing was a horrible cliché, but it was also true, at least occasionally. She’d experienced it two times before. The first time had happened when she’d been young and gotten into her first real firefight. The second time had happened when Ryder had died, _again_ , during the Archon crisis. This was the third time everything seemed to slow down for a moment, and Peebee did not like it. _No, enough with the understatements._ She hated it. One second she was sending some kett Chosen flying with a Shockwave, trying not to get surrounded when the kett just kept on coming, and the next there was a hulking shadow over her. A Fiend, larger than any she’d seen before, and with her biotics still in cooldown, she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The Fiend was moments away from crushing Peebee into a bloody pulp when Drack suddenly pushed her aside. As Peebee rolled to the side, her pistol flying who knows where, she saw the Fiend grabbing Drack and merely tossing him aside like a doll. _How do you toss a krogan?!_ There was a horrid _crunch_ sound, and Drack’s body, now completely limp, fell to the ground.

“DRACK!” Peebee screamed, screamed so loudly it hurt her lungs, but Drack didn’t get up. _He’s a krogan. He’s a krogan why isn’t he getting up oh Goddess I don’t even I mean I never Drack please no –_ “Drack, you have to get up! Get up!”

He didn’t. He was just lying there, in the stupid sand, and the Fiend was moving towards him again. More kett were pouring in from the building too – _well, we are distracting them, at least_ – and Peebee made a split-second decision. Biotic cooldowns existed for a reason; it was usually a bad idea to overload your brain. But ‘usually’ didn’t apply when your friend was about to get squashed by a Fiend. So Peebee ignored the pounding in her head, leaped to Drack’s side with her biotics, and covered them both with the strongest barrier she could muster. She instantly felt like she’d pulled a muscle in her brain, and when the Fiend slammed its fist against the barrier, Peebee tasted blood in her mouth. But the barrier held. It wobbled a little, but it held. _Pelessaria B’Sayle, one of the great asari Huntresses of our age, capable of manipulating the universe with her mind – yup, definitely. Blah. If only Cora could see me now._

“Come on, Drack, pull it together,” Peebee groaned when the freshly-arrived kett also decided to the test the strength of her barrier. Every single bullet that hit the biotic field felt like needles in her brain. “Seriously, I’m begging you, get up before I pass out or we’re both gonna die here.” _Is the cut bleeding again? Or is that just my brain leaking out of my head?_

“Peebee!” _Cora, is that you? Or am I hallucinating?_ “Peebee, hang in there!”

The Fiend raised its fist for another blow, and just when Peebee was sure her barrier would collapse on itself, Cora was suddenly standing next to her. She didn’t just strengthen the barrier; she pushed it outward so hard that the hulking Fiend actually staggered back. Then a bullet went through its head. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times, until the Fiend finally fell dead to the ground. From the corner of her eye, Peebee saw Jaal and his sniper rifle jumping down from… _the roof?_ and rushing forward to finish off the smaller kett. Peebee’s head was spinning and pounding all at once, but even when she fell down to her knees, she didn’t pass out. She was quite proud of that.

“You okay?” Cora asked, and Peebee tried to chuckle. It sounded more like a gurgle, though.

“Who cares about me, it’s Drack that’s… that’s…”

“Still here, kiddo,” Drack groaned, and when Peebee eventually managed to look up, Cora was already helping him stand up. _Oh thank every single god._ “Though why you’d pull off a stunt like that for a half-dead krogan, I have no idea.”

“ME? Stunt?! You’re the one who – you know what, never mind. Thanks for saving me, Drack. I was just returning the favor.”

“Is everyone still alive?!” Now Jaal was also running up to them, so apparently they were clear for the moment. “Drack, Peebee?”

“Still here,” Peebee and Drack confirmed in unison.

“Though I guess our distraction didn’t exactly go as planned,” Drack sighed.

“No, it worked, we think we found what we came for,” Cora said, and Jaal showed them the black box. “We don’t know what it is, exactly, but hopefully Suvi and Gil can tell us more.”

Speaking of the devil, Suvi and her shuttle landed a few dozen meters away from the ground party. It wasn’t long before Suvi was running up to them with three packs of medi-gel in hand.

“Oh my god, I heard the screaming, is everyone alright? What happened?”

“A Fiend,” Peebee muttered. “Drack took the worst of it.”

“I’m a krogan, kiddo. Redundant nervous system, remember? I’ll be fine.”

“You blacked out!”

Drack looked confused. “I did?”

“Yes!” Peebee tried to throw her hands in exasperation but was met with a sharp pain in the back of her head. _Ow, ow, ow. Brain overload._

“Hey, take it easy, Peebee, it’s alright.” While Peebee was busy trying not to vomit, Cora placed a hand on her shoulder. “Give your brain a break, try to breathe. That’s it, good. Suvi, did you call for the Tempest?”

“Yes, I did, but Kallo said he couldn’t pick us up until he’d gotten rid of the kett ships chasing him. I – wait, what’s that?”

Suvi was suddenly staring at the black box Jaal was holding, and though Peebee had no idea what it was, Suvi seemed to know better.

“We found it above the main console room,” Jaal explained. “We think this is what was causing the noise the last time we were here.”

“That… looks like…” Suvi sounded so hesitant that Peebee tried to look up again. The pain in her brain came running back, so that was a failed attempt. “… Never mind. I’ll have to ask Gil to be sure.”

“If you know what it is, tell us,” Jaal pleaded. “What did it do to Sara?”

“I… I’m not sure what it does, exactly, but if it is what I think it is… Then that’s not kett technology, not even Andromeda technology. That’s from the Milky Way. More specifically… from Earth. That’s Alliance tech.”

 

 

“I look smart, right?” Liam asked as he peered over Vetra’s shoulder. With less than thirty minutes to spare before landing on Kadara, they were previewing their counter-propaganda vid. And apparently Liam was so happy with the contents of his speech that he just had to focus on his looks.

“Yeah, sure, very smart,” Vetra mumbled, too focused on the video to really listen. Honestly, considering that the vid had been shot with an omni-tool in the cargo hold of a freighter, it was really good. Liam was – most of the time – a very likeable person, and it showed. He calmly explained what had happened to Ryder on Korvath before stating that Cora was now the acting captain of the Tempest, and the Pathfinder team was handling everything. And, most importantly, he told everyone to keep clear of Sara until further notice and to notify the Tempest crew immediately if anyone saw her.

“It’s a good vid,” Vetra concluded after they’d gotten to the end. “Much better than Tann’s.”

“That’s not raising the bar very high,” Liam snorted. “Alright, post it. Post it in a way that Tann can’t take it down.”

“Well, we don’t have the access codes for _that_ , exactly, but we can still make it very hard for Tann to remove it from the official channels. That should give people enough time to see it and form their own opinions.”

“This also kinda makes our whole mutiny public, doesn’t it?” Liam seemed to realize. “Think Tann will do something about it?”

“Whine, maybe.” Vetra shrugged. “Honestly, with Meridian in kett control, they really can’t afford to start hunting us. Unless everyone agrees that ‘the Pathfinder team is more dangerous than the kett’, we should be fine. At best, they’ll end up yelling at us.”

“The usual, then,” Liam grinned.

“Is the vid up yet?” Ilaw inquired from the cockpit. “It had better be, because we’re approaching Kadara, and you’re kinda running out of time.”

“Posting it… right now.” Vetra clicked on the icon on her omni-tool, and then the vid was up. _No turning back now. This is mutiny, right here, for everyone to see._ “Now, to Kadara. Let’s get the _actual_ show on the road.”

“I’m hurt,” Liam gasped dramatically. “You’re saying my brilliant explanation vid wasn’t show enough for you?”

“Fine, sure, _our_ brilliant vid was the prologue. Kadara is Act One of the show.”

“And Act Two?”

“We find Ryder, fix everything, and get a happy ending.”

Liam chuckled. “Sounds good to me.”

 


	5. Conundrum

“Kallo, in case you didn’t hear me the first five times, we need to land. Right. Now!” Gil snapped. The only condition for this distraction plan had been that Kallo couldn’t work the Tempest to the point where the engine would start to melt. An hour later they were getting far too close to that point, and no matter how good Gil was at his job, even he couldn’t keep the ship in the air forever. Plus, it had been at least ten minutes since Suvi had called for an evac. Of course, they couldn’t land if they were being shot at, but they also couldn’t land if the engine exploded! _This is the goddamn Scourge all over again._

“And _I_ told you those five times that we can’t land while the kett are shooting at us!” Kallo yelled back through the comm.

“They won’t have anything to shoot at if the engine blows up!”

“I’ve almost lost them, just give me a few more moments!”

“How long is a ‘moment’?!”

There was no response. That was far more worrying than any amount of yelling.

“Kallo, how long is a _moment_?!”

Kallo responded this time. He responded by turning the Tempest around so fast that Gil nearly fell over in the engine room. If any other pilot had done that, Gil would have screamed. But after a year of working together… Gil trusted that Kallo knew what he was doing. Usually. And hopefully the feeling was mutual.

“That’s how long a moment is,” Kallo’s smug voice announced, and Gil rolled his eyes. “Has the engine exploded yet?”

“No, but you’re on pretty thin ice, Kallo.”

“That’s an idiom, I think? Never mind, we have crew to evacuate. Prepare for landing.”

When the Tempest finally touched down on the surface of Korvath, Gil and Lexi were both standing in the launch bay, waiting for the door to open. Even Kallo joined them after parking the ship.

“Since when have you been a part of the ground team?” Gil inquired, and Kallo made a face.

“Since when have _any_ of us been a part of the ground team? Since when has Suvi been a shuttle pilot? Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Fair enough,” Gil admitted, and Lexi sighed.

When the launch bay door finally opened, the trio was met with a worrying sight. Peebee was sitting in the sand, holding her head between her knees while Cora comforted her, Drack was limping even worse than he’d been after the last mission, and Suvi looked like she was close to tears because… Jaal was holding of box of some sort? _Must be some box._

“Peebee, Drack, what happened?” Lexi immediately ran over to the injured with her med kit.

“Peebee overworked her biotics and Drack… well, Drack got thrown around by a Fiend again,” Cora sighed.

While Lexi proceeded to both treat and lecture Peebee and Drack, Suvi suddenly grabbed Gil by the sleeve and pulled him over, Kallo following suit in wonder.

“Gil, Gil, look at it,” Suvi muttered almost frantically, as if seeing Gil had snapped her out of some kind of trance. “Have you seen one of those before?”

When Jaal showed them the black box, at first Gil had no idea what Suvi was talking about. It was just a box, like the hard drive of an old computer or something. But then the realization hit Gil right in the face, and his breath caught in his throat. _No way. What is that doing here?_

“Is… that…?”

“That’s what I thought, but I can’t be, right? Please, Gil, tell me I’m wrong!” Suvi pleaded, and Gil really wished the box wasn’t what he thought it was.

“I… was kinda hoping you’d tell _me_ that. It can’t be. Can it? No. Maybe?”

“This is really starting to worry me,” Jaal muttered, and Kallo nodded in agreement.

“Yes, what are you two talking about? What is this box? Is it a bomb? Is it dangerous?”

“Not a bomb, no, but ‘dangerous’ is… an understatement,” Gil mumbled. _What kind of mess have we gotten ourselves into this time?_

 

 

It was an early morning in Kadara Port when Liam and Vetra arrived there. They’d gotten little rest during their trip, and by now they were both running on stim packs. _We’ll sleep when we aren’t busy mutinying and saving our Pathfinder._ Their freighter pilot Ilaw, however, didn’t seem the least bit tired; the benefits of being a salarian, or that’s what Vetra thought, anyway. Ilaw wished them good luck before heading out to handle her own cargo business, but Liam and Vetra weren’t left to their own devices for long. They’d barely stepped through the docking bay doors when they were met with a familiar face.

“Sid!” Vetra called, and when Sid noticed her sister, she ran over to give her a hug. On one hand, Vetra was ecstatic that Sid was safe, but on the other, she was worried that her sister was in Kadara Port of all places. “What are you doing here? I told you to get to the outpost, not Kadara Port!”

“I was heading there; Kadara Port is kinda a mandatory stop on the road to Ditaeon unless you have your own ship,” Sid rolled her eyes. “But what are you doing here?  I saw your vid – by the way, Liam, your hair looked great in it – and I thought you’d be trying to save Ryder? Where is she, anyway? Wait, is she _here_?”

“Probably not,” Vetra admitted. “However, since you said that Scott should be on Kadara, we’re looking for him. The rest of the team is handling the other Ryder at the moment.”

“Do you think she’s okay?” Sid asked. “I mean, no one believes Tann, especially not after your vid, but I’m worried. What you said about the mission on Korvath… Honestly, I’m not even mad that you didn’t tell me earlier. That’s some scary stuff, and I… I just wanna know that Ryder is okay.”

“Ryder’s tough,” Liam tried to assure her. “She’ll be fine, and once she’s back to her old self, we’ll sort this out and kick the kett out of Meridian.”

“Well, if anyone can do it, it’s definitely you guys. Can I do anything to help?”

Vetra sighed. “Sid, this is dangerous, you shouldn’t – “

“Yeah, yeah, but there has to be _something_!”

“Maybe there is,” Liam cut in. “Sid, once you get to Ditaeon, make sure everyone talks about _our_ vid, not Tann’s. Keep standing up for us and Ryder, that should help us plenty. And stay safe, of course.”

“Yeah, Liam’s right,” Vetra nodded. “Support is always welcome, especially when this is… well, a mutiny, pretty much.”

“Alright, yeah, I can do that!” Sid promised. “Let me know if you need anything else! And good luck on finding Scott!”

Eager to start her new mission, Sid continued her journey to Ditaeon soon after. Liam and Vetra, however, stayed in Kadara Port.

“Think Reyes is still sitting around in Tartarus?” Liam asked, and Vetra sighed.

“Five credits say he is.”

“Nice try, Vetra, but I don’t take sucker bets.”

 

 

Cora was glad Suvi had called for an evac earlier. Soon after the Tempest’s appearance on Korvath, kett reinforcements had also showed up, and with both Drack and Peebee injured, they crew had to make a quick exit. Just as well; they’d already gotten what they came for. Thankfully for both the crew and the ship (Gil kept on saying that Kallo had overworked the engine), they managed to leave Korvath in time before the kett had even noticed them, avoiding any more firefights.

Once they were safely back on the Tempest, it was time to deal with the aftermath. Peebee threw up soon after takeoff, a side effect of her brain overworking itself, but at least it seemed to ease her headache, and she fell asleep in the med bay in a matter of a minutes. _Poor Peebee. She handled that barrier well, and it sucks that she has to suffer for it._ Meanwhile Drack tried to convince Lexi that there was nothing wrong with him, but she insisted on running a few tests anyway. Cora hoped there was nothing seriously wrong with him, even if he had passed out for a second; _the krogan are tougher than that, aren’t they?_ Kallo had returned to the helm to get them to their next stop, Kadara, so that they could eventually rendezvous with Liam and Vetra, but everyone else – Gil, Suvi, Cora, and Jaal – focused on the black box they had found.

“Alright, you two, what is this thing and why does it have you looking like we have a murder weapon on our hands?” Cora demanded with her arms crossed. All four of them were standing outside the med bay once again; the hang-out hallway was living up to its name.

Suvi and Gil had a short staring contest, probably trying to decide who should do the explaining, until Gil finally gave up and sighed.

“It’s an L Box. Or at least we think it is.”

Jaal and Cora frowned. “An L Box?”

“That’s what people call them; I don’t know why,” Gil continued. “It’s sort of like… a jammer for biotic implants. Or that’s what I’ve heard, because I’ve only ever seen one on the black market, back in the Milky Way. I didn’t buy it, of course, no one in their right mind would, but…”

“Black market? I saw it in an Alliance lab!” Suvi interrupted. “One of my coworkers had one, but she refused to say how she got it, and then she got fired, and everyone was talking about – never mind, not important. But that was all back in the Milky Way! How can an L Box be here?”

“Alright, give us the whole story,” Cora urged. “What does the L Box do, why is it dangerous, who invented it? The rest of us have never heard of it.”

“For a reason,” Gil sighed. “It used to be an Alliance project, or so I’ve heard. Remember that this is all just rumors, I’m honestly not an expert on this. Back when the first human biotics started appearing, the Alliance wanted to do… how do I put this… have a plan B, or more like plan Z, in case something went wrong. The L Box was that plan Z. It was meant to jam biotic implants, rendering any biotics within range practically… well, they say ‘like vegetables’, but I hope it wasn’t that bad, because that would be... God, I really hope it wasn’t like that. If the Alliance actually pulled off experiments that… But it could be just rumors! I have no evidence whatsoever!”

_A device that turns biotics within range into vegetables?_ Cora felt sick. And angry. But mostly sick. Jaal seemed to agree, and Cora was unsurprised. It was the only natural reaction to something like this.

“Alliance is the human military in the Milky Way, isn’t it?” Jaal frowned, and Gil nodded.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah, the military is a part of it.”

“You said it _used_ to be an Alliance project,” Jaal continued. “What happened?”

“They grew a conscience, I’d hope. Having a ‘delete all’ button is a pretty inhuman solution as far as backup plans go. God, I really hope they never actually tested it on anyone.”

“But this box didn’t affect Ryder’s biotics or turn her into a vegetable,” Cora noted. “Why?”

“I think it’s been modified,” Suvi explained. “It looks that way even on the outside. See these lines here? Those didn’t exist in the box my coworker had. If the Alliance stopped their development – which they hopefully did –, someone else could have continued where they left off. Like that coworker I had. I mean, obviously I don’t know _why_ she got fired, but she did have one of these boxes, and… well, it was all very suspicious back then.”

“What was her name?” Jaal asked. “Do you know if she joined the Initiative?”

“Flora… something. And I have no idea, I barely knew her back then, we never kept in touch.”

“Seems like a stretch, but we could still check the Initiative records for any humans called ‘Flora’,” Gil suggested.

“Already on it.” Cora was scrolling through her omni-tool. “No, no humans named ‘Flora’ on the Nexus or the Hyperion.”

“So we know what the origin story of this box is, but we have no idea who brought it here and what it can do to a person’s brain,” Jaal summarized. “To be honest, I was hoping for something… more to go on.”

Suvi looked thoughtful as she continued to inspect the L Box. “I agree that it’s very hard to narrow down any suspects with just this device. We can’t simply start suspecting everyone who’s ever been in the Alliance. If these things really have been on the black market in the Milky Way, as Gil says, anyone could have continued to develop them in secret. It doesn’t even have to be a human.”

“Suvi’s right,” Gil agreed. “The only thing this does narrow down is that someone from the Milky Way is involved in this, since the L Box isn’t kett or angaran. But the kett on Korvath still had it, so…”

“So someone in the Initiative is working with them, like we already suspected after the Meridian coup,” Cora concluded. “Back to square one?”

Suvi shook her head. “Not exactly. Gil and I will start going through the L Box, see if we can find out how it’s been modified and what it’s designed to do. Maybe that’ll give us a clue on how to help Ryder.”

“We could use your help too, Jaal,” Gil added. “If the kett have done any modifications to the box here in Andromeda, you’ll probably spot them better than us.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Jaal promised.

“Alright, I’ll leave the L Box to you guys then,” Cora nodded in agreement. “Just… be careful. We don’t need any more accidents in here.”

“Tell me about it,” Lexi suddenly marched out of the med bay, closing the door behind her.

“Any updates?” Suvi asked, and Lexi sighed.

“Peebee and Drack are both asleep, which should surprise no one, considering that we’ve all been up for almost 24 hours. As for their injuries, thankfully they looked worse than they actually were. Peebee should be fine with some painkillers and rest, though I did warn her not to overload her biotics like that again. Drack did pass out in the field for a moment, as Peebee said, but that’s not entirely uncommon for krogan. He did suffer a minor concussion and some fractures in his left leg, but thankfully we managed to apply medi-gel fast enough to avoid any permanent injuries.”

“That’s good to hear,” Cora sighed, and everyone nodded in agreement. “Did you hear what we talked about the box?”

Lexi bit her lip. “I did, and it’s worrying. Technology like that… I don’t understand how it can even exist in Andromeda. But right now, it’s more important that we all get some rest. We can’t focus on anything when we’re this overworked.”

“But – “ the entire squad tried to argue, but Lexi held her ground.

“No, we need to rest. That’s a doctor’s order. We have at least 12 hours before we reach Kadara, which means we have plenty of time on our hands. Get some sleep, and we can continue solving this mess afterwards.”

“I… guess we’ve been awake for a while,” Suvi admitted reluctantly.

“Yeah,” Cora sighed. Adrenaline had kept her going so far, but now that it was starting to wear off, perhaps Lexi was right after all. They wouldn’t be able to help anyone if they couldn’t even keep their eyes open. “Alright, we’ll – Gil? Gil, are you okay?”

“I think he fell asleep on his feet,” Suvi whispered.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryder's been gone for like four chapters and I already miss her


	6. Lost

Liam was glad he hadn’t taken Vetra’s sucker bet; Reyes was indeed still hanging around in Tartarus. For some reason, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised when they walked into his room in the bar. Complete opposite of surprised, actually.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the new Initiative mutineers,” Reyes smirked on his couch. “Have you decided to join us exiles?”

“You’re awfully cheery for someone whose friend and greatest ally has been brainwashed by the enemy,” Vetra blurted out, and Liam coughed. _She’s definitely not pulling any punches._

“Am I on the list of suspects? I’m hurt.” Reyes’s smile died on his lips as he stood up. “All jokes aside, I heard about Ryder even before the Tann vid, and in case it’s not obvious already, that’s bad news. It means that people in the Initiative knew before it came public, which – “

“Probably means that someone has stabbed us in the back. Yeah, we figured as much,” Vetra sighed. “You have any idea who?”

Reyes made a face. “There are too many suspects to list right now. Tann and Addison are at the top, though.”

“Addison?” Liam frowned. “We just suspected Tann.”

“Well, Tann is the obvious choice,” Reyes admitted. “But sometimes the obvious choice is _too_ obvious.”

“Do you think any of the exiles had something to do with this?” Vetra asked, and Reyes looked unusually serious all of a sudden.

“So far the evidence says no. But –,“ he was now looking at Vetra and Liam directly in the eyes, “if they did, you can be sure I’ll make them pay for it. I’ll say this as plainly as I can: I. Am. On. Your. Side. Even if it was mostly Ryder who trusted me, and I get that the rest of you guys can sometimes still be a little suspicious of us exiles, I want to help you, now more than ever. You said it yourself; Ryder is my best ally _and_ my friend. I’ll do anything to fix this mess, to repay her if nothing else. So, anything you need, just let me know; I’ll do my best for you.”

“Well.” Liam turned to look at Vetra. _Impressive speech. Sounds honest, too_. “I believe him. You?”

“Yeah,” Vetra almost smiled. “I guess now Scott is our only ‘wild card’.”

“Scott?” Reyes finally looked surprised about something. “Scott Ryder? What does he have to do with this?”

“Scott’s been missing ever since this mess started,” Vetra explained. “Though Sid said he was supposed to come to Kadara earlier today – or was it yesterday? I’ve lost all track of time. Wait, didn’t Liam call you to ask about it?”

“He just asked if I’d seen Ryder’s brother, which I hadn’t – and still haven’t. Scott Ryder is not on Kadara. Trust me, no one comes or goes here without me knowing about it, especially not someone as famous as Scott Ryder. You said Sid told you this?”

“Yeah, apparently Scott himself had said that he was coming here,” Vetra nodded. “And that he’d also told Ryder about it.”

“We can’t exactly ask Ryder, though,” Liam muttered.

“We could hack her email,” Reyes suggested, and Liam nearly chocked on his tongue.

“Seriously? I – I get that this is a desperate situation, but isn’t that kinda unfair?”

“Come on, we won’t open any non-related messages, just check if there’s anything recent from Scott.”

“It could help,” Vetra hesitantly agreed, and Liam sighed in defeat.

“Alright, fine. But don’t go digging through her personal stuff!”

“I won’t, I promise.” Reyes was already going through his computer. _Why is he so good at this? No, don’t ask._ “Hmm. The last email from Scott Ryder is from yesterday. It’s titled ‘Re: Kadara’. Should I open it?”

“Seems like what we’re looking for,” Vetra nodded. “Go ahead.”

“’All the way to Korvath? Alright, have fun, be careful, all that. Sure, I’ll head to Kadara and tell Reyes, no problem. It’s not like Harry lets me do anything else anyway. I’ll let you know once I’m done, maybe also check if I can find some chocolate while I’m at it. Scott’.”

Liam frowned. “So he _was_ supposed to come here. To tell you… something. And to find chocolate.”

“If Ryder asked him to do it, it was probably Initiative business,” Vetra pondered.

“It was about an upgrade for the outpost,” Reyes announced, and when Vetra and Liam stared at him, he shrugged. “I checked what the first email was about. The info was meant for me anyway; I wanted to know if it was anything serious. Turns out Scott was just sick of sitting around in Meridian and needed something to do. And chocolate.”

“So Scott _was_ supposed to come here, but he never showed up?” Vetra sounded more concerned by the minute, and for a good reason.

“According to Sid, he did leave Meridian, though,” Liam added. “So he… disappeared on his way here?”

“That’s… not good. At all,” Reyes muttered, and Liam couldn’t agree more.

“Where the hell is he? Isn’t there any way we can find him? Track his… wait. Can we find out what ship he took and track that?”

“We’d need Meridian ship logs for that, and I can’t hack those remotely,” Reyes said. “I’d need direct access, and considering that Meridian is now in kett hands…”

Vetra stared at him incredulously. “That’s official Initiative info. We’re the Pathfinder team. You think we don’t have access to those logs?”

Reyes stared right back at her. “You mutinied. Literally told Tann you’re no longer working with him by publishing that vid. So no, I do not think you have access to those logs.”

Liam didn’t know who to believe. _I guess it’s possible that they blocked our access after the vid?_ But honestly, it didn’t even matter, because they still had someone they trusted with all the codes they needed for this.

“Doesn’t Sid have access though?” Liam pointed out, and Reyes and Vetra turned to stare at him instead of each other. Now it wasn’t sarcastic staring, though; they looked embarrassed they hadn’t thought of it themselves. “She literally works on Meridian.”

“Your younger sister?” Reyes glanced at Vetra again, and she nodded. “She arrived here just moments before you two did, didn’t she?”

Liam narrowed his eyes at Reyes. “Just so you know, it’s weird that you know everything around here.”

“Part of the job, my friend,” Reyes smirked. “I can also tell you that she’s currently in Ditaeon, so I guess that’s where we’ll be heading.”

It was Liam’s turn to be surprised again. “You’re coming with us?”

“Of course. What? Why are you still looking at me like that? Okay, let me put it this way: Ryder is being mind-controlled, Meridian has been taken, and now Scott is missing. What makes you think this isn’t number one on my list of priorities right now?”

“Fair point,” Liam admitted. “So, what are we waiting for?”

 

 

_“Sara, it’s me, Jaal! Please, listen to me, I’m begging you! Stop this madness!”_

_It didn’t work. Nothing he did worked. The person standing in front of Jaal looked like Sara, but it wasn’t her. There was no life behind her eyes, no laughter, no joy, not even anger. She was a puppet with someone else pulling the strings, and Jaal couldn’t do anything to fix it._

_“Sara Ryder is dead,” the puppet master said with Sara’s voice. “You cannot get her back; she is no longer here.”_

_She was glowing. Jaal had learned that glowing meant biotics, and he knew that this was turning into a fight, but he couldn’t touch his rifle to save his life. How was he supposed to fight her? Even if it wasn’t Sara, it still was! Jaal couldn’t hurt her if he wanted to, and he didn’t, he couldn’t. But he also couldn’t let Sara hurt anyone, but how –_

Jaal woke up in the tech lab covered in sweat and gasping for air. At first he wasn’t even sure where he was. He’d been sleeping in Sara’s cabin for months, but with her gone, it had felt wrong to go there. So, he was back in the lab where he had bunked in the beginning, and according to his omni-tool, he’d gotten less than five hours of sleep.

“Sara,” Jaal whispered alone in the dark room, finally giving himself the permission to cry. They had been so busy trying to solve the situation that Jaal hadn’t been able to even properly process everything that had happened, and now with the nightmares as well… It was too much. Everything was wrong, everything hurt, and Jaal had no idea how to make it stop. What if they couldn’t fix it? What if they couldn’t save Sara? What if someone else found her before they did? What if someone hurt her? What if –  

_No. No, don’t even think about that. It’s barely been a day. We will figure this out, and fix everything, and get Sara back. We can do it, together._

Not wanting to return to his nightmares, Jaal decided to get dressed and head down to the galley to find something to eat. To his surprise Gil was also there, sipping on a mug of what smelled like coffee and examining the L Box.

“Oh, hey,” Gil greeted when he spotted Jaal. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

“No,” Jaal shook his head, grabbed a protein bar – one of the few Milky Way foods he’d grown to like so far –, and joined Gil at the table. “But didn’t Cora carry you to bed?”

Gil raised his brows. “That’s how I ended up there? Weird, I don’t remember any – eh, not important. Anyways, I woke up like an hour ago. I tried to go back to sleep, but I just… My brain won’t shut up, you know?”

“I know.”

“So I thought I’d survive on coffee, like I usually do, and have another look at this L Bo – well, I’m not even sure we should be it calling it an L Box. I mean, it’s obviously a developed version of the L Box, but if the function’s different, it’s not really an L Box, is it?”

“Then what should we call it?” Jaal asked, and Gil ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, I’ve never gotten to name anything before. Honestly, Jill probably won’t even let me name the baby. Maybe L2 could – wait. Wait, is that why it’s called an _L_ Box?”

Jaal stared at Gil, confused. “What?”

“The biotic implants the Alliance used, they’re called L2 and L3 and whatever. That’s why it’s called an L Box? Why haven’t I ever realized that before?”

“That’s… good to know, but I don’t see how this helps us solve anything.”

“No, you’re right, it doesn’t. Let’s just call the thing a bl – no, wait, we can’t call it a black box either. This is why I don’t get to name anything. Jaal, you name it. I believe in you.”

“ML Box.”

“That was fast. Alright, sounds cool. What does it stand for?”

“Modified L Box.”

Gil nodded approvingly. “Simple, I like it.”

Jaal looked down at the small box on the table. _How can something that looks so insignificant cause so much pain?_ “I take it you haven’t had much time to go through this thing yet?”

“No, I was still kinda waiting for the coffee to kick in. I didn’t wanna accidentally break it and turn everyone into vegetables or something.”

“We should open it up, see what’s inside.”

“Probably a good starting point,” Gil agreed. “And Jaal? I didn’t really get a chance to say this earlier, but I know this mess must hurt you even more than it hurts the rest of us. So just… anything you need, just ask, okay? We’re all in this together.”

“Thank you,” Jaal nodded. “But right now, I just want to focus on something that can help Sara, and if opening up this box can do that, then we should get started.”

“Yes, definitely. I’m right with you. Let’s turn this thing inside out.”

 

 

“Check again, it can’t be right!” Reyes said for the third time. To Vetra’s surprise, Sid did check again, albeit a bit reluctantly, but the logs still showed the exact same thing.

“It still says that Scott Ryder boarded the Condor on Meridian at 10.15 yesterday morning, and that the Condor docked at Kadara Port earlier today!” Sid repeated once again. They were gathered in one of the smaller rooms in Ditaeon, all hovering around Sid and her omni-tool since Tann had indeed blocked both Vetra and Liam’s access to Initiative records. _Punishment or covering his own tracks? Time will tell._

“No ship under that name has docked here!” Reyes argued. “There has to be a mistake somewhere! And besides, if Scott Ryder did arrive here, why didn’t he come to see me? That was the point of the entire trip, wasn’t it?”

“He has a point,” Liam admitted. “There _is_ a mistake somewhere, but we just don’t know where.”

“I’m telling every single soul on this planet to keep an eye out for Scott Ryder and that damn ship,” Reyes muttered, typing something on his omni-tool. “If he is indeed here and the docking staff is withholding information for one reason or another, we’ll know soon enough.”

“Suspecting an exile betrayal after all?” Vetra asked, and Reyes sighed.

“I hope to every single god not. I think we have enough on our hands dealing with the Initiative betrayal.”

Vetra agreed that Reyes was right about that. If they would have to add ‘someone in the Collective is working against Reyes and the Initiative’ to their growing list of problems, well… that might be too much for even the Tempest crew to handle alone.

“Come now, guys,” Liam tried to cheer them up. “Both the Initiative and the Collective betraying their own and working with the kett? What are the odds of that actually happening?”

“Constantly growing,” Reyes suddenly snapped, all but punching his omni-tool. “The Condor has been spotted to the north of here. Goddammit. Come on, let’s go.”

“Can I come?” Sid asked eagerly while everyone else was already halfway out the door.

“No, you stay here,” Vetra ordered, and Sid whined in protest. “Check the logs again. Maybe you’ll spot where the mistake is.”

“For the fourth time?!” Sid groaned, but Vetra didn’t have time to argue with her now. They had to find the Condor and Scott, so she followed Reyes and Liam to the nearest Initiative shuttle and trusted that Reyes knew where he was going.

 

 

Cora woke up to the sound of her omni-tool screaming at her – well, maybe it was more like beeping, but she was so groggy that it definitely sounded like screaming. 11.15. So, she’d gotten a luxurious six hours of sleep. Yawning, Cora pushed herself into a sitting position and opened her omni-tool. _21 unread messages._

“What is it?” Suvi mumbled from the bed above Cora’s. “Is someone dying?”

“My inbox,” Cora yawned again. _Kesh. Kandros. Addison._ _Tann. At least five other people. Wonderful._ “I thought I muted this thing.”

“You can’t mute messages that are marked urgent,” Suvi explained, and judging from the movement in her bunk, she was also trying to get up. “Huh. Gil and Lexi aren’t here. How little sleep did they get?”

“Even less than us, apparently. Uh, in other news… it looks like our mutiny is very much public knowledge right now. And the Initiative wants my head for it.”

_Cora what’s happening, Cora why aren’t you answering, Cora where is Ryder, Cora is Ryder the enemy, Cora is the Tempest the enemy, Cora are you dead, Cora respond or I will blah, blah, blah._

“Well, it had to happen eventually,” Suvi sighed. She jumped down from her bunk and started pulling a hoodie over her pajamas. “Are you going to respond to them?”

Cora wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. What would even I say? ‘Yes, we mutinied, sorry about that, I’ll get back to you once we’ve saved our Pathfinder from herself and from you’?”

“Seems like a start,” Suvi smiled. “I’ll go get some breakfast. Or is it already time for lunch? Anyway, do you want to join me?”

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Cora promised as she started to get dressed. “I’ll just head to the bridge first and ask Kallo for an update.”

Unsurprisingly, Kallo seemed to be the only one on the ship who wasn’t tired. Sometimes Cora envied the salarians and their lack of need for rest. What was surprising, however, was that Peebee was also on the bridge, sitting on Suvi’s usual seat.

“Peebee?” Cora rubbed her eyes. “Are you feeling better? Does your head still hurt?”

“Oh, hey, Cora. Nope, all better now,” Peebee grinned. “The sleep really helped. Anyways, did you see the vid Liam posted?”

“Vid? What vid?”

“Oh, it got taken down a little while go, probably by Initiative brass,” Kallo chimed in. “But it was a great vid. I’m guessing Liam and Vetra shot it on their way to Kadara. They corrected all the lies Tann tried to spread and told everyone to stay clear of Ryder until everything has been solved. Very useful, I think.”

“So that’s why everyone’s been bombarding me with messages,” Cora sighed. “I guess this means our mutiny is public now.”

“I think it’s better this way,” Peebee said. “Now that people know the truth, they can decide whether they trust Tann or us.”

Cora pondered it for a moment. “Maybe. I’m just worried what this’ll eventually mean. Can we dock at any Initiative outpost without getting immediately arrested?”

“Have faith, Cora,” Kallo tried to sound cheerful. “We have more allies than you think. _Ryder_ has more allies than anyone thinks. This is for the best.”

“If you say so,” Cora sighed. “What’s the ETA to Kadara?”

“About five hours. If you want to catch some more sleep, now’s the time,” Kallo said.

“No, I think I’ve – “

Cora was suddenly interrupted by a horrible screeching sound coming from somewhere below, and she covered her ears in pain. Peebee mimicked the motion, screaming something but Cora couldn’t understand what, and then she felt a stabbing pain in the back of her head. Her biotic implant. _God, they didn’t actually turn on the L Box, did they?_ Thankfully the noise ended as quickly as it had started, and before Kallo and Peebee could even say anything, Cora was already running downstairs.

“Gil, what did you do?!”

 

 

Liam wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find when they reached the Condor, but it definitely wasn’t this. All three of them – Liam, Vetra, and Reyes – stood silently in front of the Initiative shuttle they had borrowed and stared at the sight in front of them. The Condor had indeed landed on Kadara. It had landed in the middle of the mountains missing at least half the parts a spaceship was supposed to have and the other half being on fire. It wasn’t safely docked at Kadara Port; it was a flaming crater in the middle of nowhere. But the weird part was that there were no bodies. Not a single person in sight, living or dead. It was a ghost ship, or a ghost crater.

“I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” Liam muttered in horror, and Vetra and Reyes nodded in agreement.

 


	7. Reunion

When Cora got down to the lower level of the Tempest, she was met with a baffling sight. Jaal and Gil had turned the galley into an improvised tech lab with tools and parts lying around everywhere, Suvi had dropped a what looked like a jam sandwich on the floor, and Lexi was in the hallway trying to keep Drack from reaching towards said sandwich.

“What is going on?” Cora demanded. She got about five different responses and couldn’t make out a single one of them, and suddenly Peebee was also standing next to her.

“Whose sandwich is that?” she asked, and again, five different but simultaneous and equally incomprehensible responses.

“One at a time!” Cora snapped, and everyone finally quieted down. “Great, thanks. Gil and Jaal? What was that awful noise?”

“We… maybe have touched a wrong wire and accidentally turned on the ML Box,” Gil winced. “Sorry, definitely didn’t mean to do that.”

Cora frowned in confusion. “ML?”

“Modified L Box,” Jaal explained. “Since its function is different, we thought it needed a new name. Therefore, ML Box.”

“Not very imaginative, is it?” Peebee pointed out, and Gil made a face.

“It’s better than my ideas were, trust me.”

“Alright, fair enough, the name isn’t what’s important here,” Cora sighed. “Suvi? There is food on the floor?”

“I was making a sandwich when that horrible noise started and I… panicked. Sorry.”

“Right. Drack?”

“I wanted the fallen sandwich.” He stated it as if it was completely obvious, and Cora resisted the urge to sigh again.

“Great. Lexi?”

Lexi mimicked Drack’s ‘isn’t it obvious’ tone of voice. “I tried to keep Drack from eating food off the floor.”

“Can I have it then?” Peebee asked, but Lexi wasn’t amused.

“No one is eating food off the floor!”

“Stop focusing on the sandwich!” Cora interrupted. “Gil, Jaal, you took the box apart? Did you learn anything? Besides the fact that it hurts my implant.”

Gil looked surprised. “Wait, it does? Huh. That’s… I guess that makes sense. They didn’t completely remove the original signal; they just kinda added to it. Or maybe overwrote it. Building on top of it? I want to call it garbage data but I’m not sure that applies right now. Needs more research.”

“Perhaps the signals work together,” Jaal suggested. “It could be possible that once combined, the second signal blocks out the first one, but the first signal somehow strengthens the second one.”

Gil nodded in agreement. “Yeah, seems possible since this didn’t affect Ryder’s biotics, just her… brain?”

“There are two signals that the L – sorry, ML Box can transmit?” Suvi cut in. “The original is the one that jams biotic implants, obviously, but what’s the other one then? What exactly does it do to a person’s brain?”

“That… we don’t really know yet,” Gil admitted. “To be fair, we only started like an hour ago.”

Lexi looked at them incredulously. “In the galley?”

“Spur of the moment research, Lexi,” Gil argued. “Plus, the coffee was here.”

Jaal nodded in agreement. “We have no time to waste.”

“Well, keep working on it,” Cora sighed. “Just… try not to turn the dam box on again. I don’t want to turn into a vegetable.”

“Of course,” Jaal promised. “We’re very sorry about any pain we caused. It will not happen again.”

“Drack!” Lexi suddenly snapped, and when Cora looked down, the sandwich was gone.

“Waste of food,” Drack muttered with a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.

 

 

It was already an early evening on Kadara when Liam, Vetra, and Reyes finally finished their inspection of the Condor’s remains. They had examined every piece of metal they could touch without burning their hands but had found nothing. Reyes had noted that even the computer was smashed, which meant that there were no flight records, no communication logs, nothing. The black box, however, was nowhere to be seen, burning or not burning, and that made Vetra suspect that someone had looted the place before they had arrived. _Well, either that or whoever crashed the ship took the box with them and demolished the computer while they were at it_. The Condor really was nothing more than a flaming crater in the ground.

Liam had called the Tempest a while ago, informing Cora of their location and telling them to show up in the mountains instead of Kadara Port. The Tempest was small enough to manage it, and Cora had confirmed that they were already well on their way. So, as the sun was setting on Kadara, Vetra, Liam, and Reyes sat on the rocks that gazed upon the wreckage and watched both the sunset and the burning Condor. Vetra thought they both were equally orange.

“Well, this mission was a fail,” Liam sighed. “We are no closer to finding Scott than we were this morning.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Reyes mumbled. He’d called his people hours ago, asking them to scour the area for any signs of Scott, or bodies, or people who could have been the crew of the Condor, but they’d also ended up with nothing. It was like the entire crew had disappeared into thin air. “Normally I’d suspect pirates, but no bodies, no black box on a ship that’s carrying Scott Ryder of all people? This can’t be a coincidence.”

“Agreed,” Vetra nodded. “Do you think he was kidnapped or something?”

“By the kett?” Liam grimaced. “God, I hope not.”

“It would explain the lack of… everything,” Reyes thought out loud. “And the ship looking like that could be the result of some very serious struggle.”

“So one Ryder is being mind-controlled and the other has probably been kidnapped,” Liam summarized. “This just keeps on getting better and better. I hope the others have made more progress.”

“Did Cora say anything about their mission?” Vetra asked.

“Something about a box, but apparently they’re still figuring it out. I guess we’ll see soon enough.”

“What about you?” Vetra turned to look at Reyes. “Will you join us once the others show up?”

“On the Tempest? I’m honored, but I can move more freely on my own,” Reyes said. “While you guys chase after Ryder and the kett, I’ll smoke out the people who betrayed us and caused all this. Trust me, you won’t find a better man for the job.”

“Well, I guess this mission wasn’t a _complete_ failure,” Liam corrected himself. “We found an ally, if nothing else.”

“Better more allies than more enemies,” Vetra agreed. Even if she hadn’t always trusted Reyes in the past, she believed him now. _He has no reason to turn on Ryder after everything, and besides, the Condor exploding on Kadara of all places? Reyes is too smart to set himself up like that. There’s something else going on here._

By the time the Tempest finally arrived on Kadara, the sun had already set and the fires from the Condor had died out as well. The darkness hardly mattered, though. Vetra was just glad they were all in one piece and together again. Still, it wasn’t exactly a happy reunion, considering the circumstances, but they did have a lot to share with each other: the mysterious ML Box, Scott’s suspected kidnapping, not to mention Liam and Vetra’s vid, the Initiative’s response, Peebee and Drack’s injuries, and Reyes’s cooperation. Their team meeting lasted well into the night, and by the time they were done, Liam and Vetra had all but fallen asleep. In the end, they all agreed that they hadn’t gotten enough rest lately, so they decided to stay docked on Kadara until the next morning. Reyes promised that neither the exiles or the Initiative would bother them, and he kept his word. Everything was calm in the mountains until sunrise, and after living on short naps and stim packs, the crew finally managed to get some actual rest. However, the wake-up call they received in the morning was like a bucket of cold water to the face.

It was Evfra, calling the Tempest directly instead of just Jaal. According to the Resistance, Sara and a small army of kett had been spotted near Voeld, approaching the planet.

To say that everything became chaotic after that would be an understatement. It was an immediate and a unanimous decision among the Tempest crew to head to Voeld and find Ryder. Kallo and Gil prepped the ship for takeoff in record time, Reyes promised once more to look into the Initiative and possible Collective betrayals on Kadara before running off who knows where (Sid also offered to help but Vetra told her to stay in Ditaeon), and the others ran frantically around the ship trying get dressed after just waking up. The Tempest crew barely had enough time to say goodbye to Sid and Reyes before heading towards Voeld at full speed.

“Okay,” Cora sighed when they were gathered in the conference room, having a yet another team meeting. _We have way too many team meetings nowadays. It’s worrying._ “ETA to Voeld is three hours. As Evfra said, Ryder was seen heading there earlier today. However, we don’t know why, or if the situation has changed since we left Kadara. Because of that, we have to be prepared for everything.”

“What’s our main objective?” Liam asked. “Capture Ryder?”

“Yes, but it’s easier said than done,” Cora sighed. “Jaal, did you, Suvi, and Gil make any progress with the ML Box?”

“Not enough to be of any use,” Jaal admitted. “We still don’t know what the signal actually does or if its effects can somehow be reversed with the ML Box. The only thing we did discover was that the original purpose of jamming biotic implants can still be triggered if you connect the wrong wires, as we found out earlier.”

“Do you think we could use that to capture Ryder?” Peebee asked. “Jam her biotics and then knock her out or something?”

“It’s… possible, but there’s also the risk that the ML Box could turn her into a vegetable,” Suvi reminded them. “So I really wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Let’s call the ML Box a plan Z, like Gil did earlier,” Cora agreed. “But yes, capturing Sara would be ideal so that she couldn’t hurt anyone, and we could try to help her better. We – “

Suddenly there was a yet another incoming vid call from Evfra. Cora answered immediately, and Evfra’s hologram projection appeared in the middle of the conference room.

“Evfra,” Cora greeted. “Any news?”

“Yes, and it’s bad. Ryder and her kett troops have attacked the kett base your team liberated when you first showed up there, probably in an attempt to retake it.”

“That massive thing with the Prefect? Seriously?” Peebee gasped, and Evfra nodded.

“The same one.”

“Shit,” Cora muttered. “It’s been confirmed that Ryder is there? Has she… killed anyone?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Not yet, at least. She seems to stay back while the kett do most of the dirty work, as if she’s looking for something.”

“Looking for something?” Jaal echoed. “Looking for what?”

“Unknown. But whatever it is, she’ll likely find it. The kett caught us by surprise, we’re not allowed to open fire on the Pathfinder, and the Initiative outpost has researchers, not fighters.”

“We’re on our way, Evfra,” Cora promised him. “We’ll handle this. We won’t let Ryder hurt your people.”

“Make sure you don’t,” Evfra grunted before ending the call. The Tempest crew glanced at each other with mixed reactions.

“What could they possible want with the former base?” Vetra wondered. “Jaal, do you know what the Resistance is using it for nowadays?”

“Evfra said something about databases, or something related, but I haven’t really kept up on it,” Jaal muttered. “But I do know that it’s full of Resistance members. What could be so important that they’d risk going there?”

“Did no one else catch the fact that Ryder hasn’t killed anyone yet?” Liam changed the subject. “Do you think she still has some control over her body?”

“Either that, or whoever is controlling her doesn’t want to risk her getting killed by the Resistance,” Drack said, and everyone else visibly flinched. It was finally starting to sink in that Ryder was really fighting for the opposite side, even if it was involuntarily, and if things went too far, it was a real possibility that someone might shoot her. Or try to, anyway.

“We won’t let it go that far,” Jaal said sternly, and Cora nodded.

“Exactly. But we do need to be ready for everything. Check your gear and weapons; everyone who is fit for combat is heading to that base as soon as we touch the ground.”

 

 

In the end, everyone but Drack was cleared fit for duty by Lexi. Peebee was a complicated case, but after two hours of promising to not overload her biotics again, Lexi reluctantly allowed her to go. Drack tried the same tactic (promising to not fistfight any Fiends), but it didn’t work; apparently Lexi couldn’t risk him getting hurt so soon after the blackout on Korvath. He did, however, manage to negotiate himself a… back-up role of sorts, meaning that he would stay within ten meters of the Tempest and provide cover fire if it was needed at any point.

The flight from Kadara to Voeld wasn’t a long one, and soon enough the Tempest ground team was already standing in a circle in the launch bay in full gear. The atmosphere was more than tense. According to a last-minute update by Evfra, the Resistance had been pushed back and the kett had almost completely retaken their former base. To make matters worse, Ryder had apparently blasted two Resistance officers trying to capture her with her biotics. Both were alive but injured. This was no longer an imaginary ‘what if we have to fight Ryder’ scenario; it had become reality.

“Landing on Voeld in four minutes,” Kallo announced through the comm, and the nervous fiddling in the launch bay intensified.

“Deep breaths, everyone, we have to focus,” Cora tried to tell everyone, but even her own voice was faltering. “We know our mission. Squad Alpha – Liam, Jaal, and Peebee – heads east, while Squad Omega – Vetra and myself – heads west. Drack guards the Tempest and gives us cover fire. Keep constant radio contact. If and when we find Ryder, we disarm her, immobilize her, and capture her. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, albeit a bit hesitantly since their so-called plan had some serious holes in it – for one, they had no clue how exactly they would immobilize Ryder if she fought back –, but they all knew they didn’t really have any options. There wasn’t enough time or enough resources to manage anything better than “wing it”, but then again, impromptu actions had usually worked for them in the past. Why wouldn’t it work this time as well?

As soon as the Tempest touched the ground, both Squad Alpha and Squad Omega rushed in to join the battle on Voeld and find their Pathfinder.

 


	8. Suffocation

The situation on Voeld was even worse than Jaal had anticipated. Even from the outside, it was obvious that the Resistance was definitely not in control of the former kett base any longer. But that just meant their mission was even more vital, so Jaal, Liam, and Peebee followed the plan and circled to the east side of the building, following the sound of gunfire. They found two angaran soldiers, neither of which Jaal recognized, sitting in cover (makeshift cover, really, since it looked like a fallen crate) just outside the base with at least dozen kett firing at them. Jaal and the others hurried to join them in safety before the kett could notice them.

“Who are – wait, aren’t you the ones who took down the Archon?” one of the soldiers asked, and Jaal nodded. “So we finally have some backup. I’m Sedi, this is Edrin. I assume you’re here to take care of the Pathfinder?”

“Where is she?” Jaal asked. “Have you seen her?”

“No, but Gehil’s squad did,” the other soldier – Edrin – winced. “She knocked them out so hard they’ve been unconscious ever since.”

“Where?” Jaal asked again, and Edrin pointed towards the small kett army.

“Through the open outside area and into the main building. You’ll never make it; the entire place is full of kett. They’ve been pushing us back for hours.”

“He’s right, Jaal,” Peebee cut in. “See the turrets? We’ll be full of holes before we can get anywhere.”

Sadly, Peebee was right. There were turrets all over the base, and unfortunately the kett had managed to take control of them. The last time they had been here – when they had fought against the Prefect – the plan for the turrets had been simple. Sara had taken their fire with Backlash, giving Jaal and Peebee a chance to sneak behind them and strike. _That isn’t an option this time, but maybe…_

“If Sara is in there somewhere, that’s where we have to go as well,” Jaal said sternly. “We will need a distraction.”

“Again?” Peebee groaned.

“What do you have in mind?” Liam asked, and Jaal frowned a little.

“Liam, how close would you have to get to use Overload on them?”

“Closer than this, maybe around those stairs over there? Why?”

 

 

As Jaal’s squad headed east and towards what sounded like a lot of gunfire, Cora and Vetra went west. It was quieter on that side of the building, but Cora didn’t really find it comforting. There were dozens of kett bodies lying on the ground, and a few angaran as well. Activating the vault had already started to make the snow melt, and the slush was mixing in with the brownish green of kett blood and the blue of angaran blood. _We haven’t had casualties in months. And now… it’s our fault. We shouldn’t have let Ryder go._

“Over there,” Vetra suddenly pointed at a hatch that had been almost completely covered by the slushy snow. “Do you think that could be our way inside?”

“I’m not sure it’ll lead into the main building, but it’s still something,” Cora nodded. “It could also be full of kett, though.”

Vetra leaned down and all but pressed her head against the hatch. The slush caught on to her mandibles and she winced.

“I don’t hear anything,” Vetra eventually mumbled. “Seems empty.”

“How do you hear anything over the gunfire sounds coming from the other side?” Cora asked in wonder.

“It’s a turian thing,” was all Vetra said before opening the hatch. “Come on, let’s go.”

Cora had no idea if turians actually had better hearing than humans or not, but she did know that she trusted Vetra. So, as Vetra jumped through the hatch, Cora followed suit. They landed in what looked like a lab of sorts. There were various kett consoles that had been repurposed by the Resistance, but that wasn’t what was suspicious about the place. The suspicious part was that it was completely empty save for a single kett body lying a few meters away.

“Odd,” Cora noted. “Why is this – “

Just before Cora was about to step forward, Vetra placed a hand in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Look,” Vetra mumbled, and Cora followed her gaze. At first, she wasn’t sure what Vetra was talking about, but then she saw it. Mines. Tiny, red mines were scattered all over the room and connected to the consoles with nearly invisible cables. One wrong step, and the entire thing would blow up.

“Well, I guess now we know why this place was so quiet,” Cora sighed. “And empty. But why would they bother connecting the mines to the consoles? What’s in there?”

“And who did it?” Vetra added. “The Resistance, trying to keep something hidden from the kett; or the kett, trying to hide something from us?”

“And most importantly, how do we get out of here?”

 

 

Peebee had mixed feelings about Jaal’s plan. On one hand, being a distraction was definitely something she could pull off – that’s why she usually volunteered for it. But on the other, she had just yesterday overloaded her biotics while doing this exact same thing. She knew that Lexi had cleared her for combat, and her brain definitely didn’t feel like it was bleeding out anymore, but still. If Peebee had to go through that nonsense all over again so soon, she would probably die for real this time when her brain melted. But the team needed her, so risking serious brain damage was somewhat acceptable.

“Ready?” Peebee whispered to Sedi and Edrin, the Resistance soldiers, and they nodded. “One… two… three!”

On Peebee’s count, Sedi and Edrin kicked the large box they’d been using as cover with all they had, sending it flying towards the kett soldiers. That left Peebee and the soldiers completely in the open, but that was the point of a distraction, wasn’t it? The flying box took out the Anointed and a bunch of Chosen as well, but now all three turrets were pointed at Peebee, Sedi, and Edrin. _Don’t think about the last time, don’t think about it, don’t think just do it._ With one deep breath, Peebee shielded herself as well as Sedi and Edrin with a biotic barrier, and a blink of an eye later the beams from the turrets slammed against it. Peebee flinched, the previous brain overload reminding her of its existence in her head, but Peebee knew she wouldn’t have to last long. _Just long enough for Liam and Jaal to –_

And just like that, the turrets exploded with a very nice bang, and Jaal and Liam jumped out of the smoke.

“Nice job,” Liam grinned, and Peebee lowered the barrier with a sigh. _No stabbing pain, no nausea, no brain melting… brain is still fine._

“Can you show us the way to Sara?” Jaal asked Sedi and Edrin, and they nodded.

“Follow me,” Edrin said. “We’ll definitely run into more kett, but with you three around, it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Shouldn’t have expected anything less from the Archon killers,” Sedi smirked.

Edrin had been right; the base was so full of kett soldiers that it was impossible to not run into them. Still, as they got further inside, there was also more cover they could use for their advantage. Peebee and Jaal had already taken over this place once; doing it again wasn’t going to be an issue. But still, even as they moved through the building, there was no sign of Ryder. _She’s probably down at the lower levels, if she even is here. She could have left by now for all we know._

“Through there,” Edrin pointed towards the smaller room at the back of the building. “There’s a way down to the second level. We – “

“Look out!” Sedi suddenly yelled, and the only thing Peebee could properly register was Sedi leaping on her and Edrin, pushing them onto the ground. Soon after there was a loud crash above them, and then darkness, as if someone had just turned off the lights. After the initial shock wore off, Peebee blinked a few times and realized that the world hadn’t gone completely black after all. She was in the room that led to the lower levels, with Sedi lying on top of her and Edrin. The doorway, however, had been sealed shut with falling rocks. _They fired at the damn mountain? They tried to drop a mountain on us??_

“Everyone okay?” Sedi breathed, and Endrin and Peebee nodded.

“Yeah, thanks. I – “

“Peebee?!” Jaal’s voice called from somewhere on the other side of the rocks. “Peebee, are you alright?!”

“We’re fine, Jaal!” Peebee yelled back, jumping up on her feet. “You and Liam?”

“Still here!” Liam’s voice answered this time. “But it looks like the only way in just got sealed off! We don’t see any other doors!”

“I could try to blast off the rocks with my biotics?” Peebee suggested. “Just take a step back and – “

She never got to finish her sentence before the gunfire started. Kett were pouring in from the opening on the floor: Peebee counted three Chosen, two Anointed, and possibly a Destined as she dove behind a desk for cover. Sedi and Edrin leaped to the other side of the room, already firing back at the kett. One of the Chosen ran towards Peebee, but she sent it flying with one swift Shockwave. Meanwhile Sedi and Edrin had managed to take out the other Chosen when the Anointed suddenly blew up the frail box they’d used as cover, leaving them completely exposed. Her breath catching in her throat, Peebee leaped forward with her jetpack, shielding the angaran duo with a barrier a heartbeat before the Anointed opened fire on them again. As the first bullets hit the barrier, Peebee suddenly tasted blood in her mouth, and she nearly fell over. _No. No, don’t, don’t do this to me. Brain, don’t do this. We’re dead if I can’t keep this up. We’re all dead if I’m not… If…_ Peebee’s head was pounding and her arms were shaking as she held up the barrier, and just when she thought she might be able to hold off the Anointed, the Destined uncloaked itself and fired its shotgun directly at the barrier. Once. Twice. The third time was too much. As Peebee’s barrier collapsed on itself, so did she. Hovering somewhere between conscious and unconscious, she vaguely registered Edrin falling to the floor next to her, his chest full of holes from the Anointed’s gun. Somebody screamed, or maybe it was just Peebee’s own brain pleading for help, and then everything really did go dark.

 

 

“This is ridiculous,” Vetra muttered as she disarmed a yet another mine. She’d been on the floor for a while now, trying to make her way to the main console without blowing up the entire room, but it was easier said than done. Every single mine had to be disarmed separately to avoid triggering the others, and with Cora having zero knowledge about this kind of tech, it was up to Vetra. _How did they even manage to put up so many mines? What the hell is on these computers?_

“I know, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” Cora sighed. She’d been trying to open the hatch they’d gone through, but apparently the slushy snow had jammed up the lock and it refused to open. “Some mission this is. We’re stuck in the first room we stumbled into.”

“Who goes there?” a very angaran sounding voice suddenly called, and both Vetra and Cora turned around to look at the unreachable door at the other side of the room. An angaran soldier, probably a woman, was standing there with weapon in hand. “Who are you? How did you get there?”

“I’m Lieutenant Cora Harper of the Tempest,” Cora stated, holding her hands up in the air. Vetra decided to follow her example and got up from the floor. “This is Vetra Nyx. We’re – “

“The Pathfinder team?” the angaran soldier cut in, and Cora nodded. “Oh, thank the stars, you finally got here. I’m Squad Leader Rhy. But what are you doing there? How did you even get there with all the mines?”

“Through there,” Vetra pointed towards the hatch. “We had no idea the place was mined, though.”

“Can you help us?” Cora asked, but Rhy had already taken out the angaran version of an omni-tool. A few seconds later all the mines made a strange beeping sound before going quiet.

“There, disarmed,” Rhy smiled a little. “Sorry about the inconvenience. When the kett showed up, Lhy – my sister, one of the scientists here – told me that whatever happens, they can’t get the info on these consoles. So we mined up the place and hooked them up to the computers. I’m glad neither of you got blown up, though.”

“Yes, well, so are we,” Cora sighed. “We’re looking for Ryder, the human Pathfinder who’s being controlled by the kett. Have you seen her?”

“No, but she’s the one who knocked out Gehil’s squad – or what remained of it. I think she was heading downstairs, to the lower levels.”

“Why?” Vetra asked. “If all the important info is here, on these consoles, why would Ryder go somewhere else? What is she after?”

“That I don’t know,” Rhy admitted. “We thought for sure they were after our flight routes, base details, other tactical info, but apparently not.”

“Well, whatever Ryder wants, we have to stop her before she gets it,” Cora said sternly. “Let’s head to – “

“Cora! Vetra!” Liam’s voice suddenly called, and the next second he was jumping down from the roof with his jetpack. “Finally found you! Peebee is – and rocks – stuck – Jaal said – and I couldn’t – “

“Slow down,” Vetra told him, and Liam took a deep breath. “What happened?”

“We were trying to get to the lower levels to find Ryder when the kett fired at the mountain,” Liam explained. “The falling rocks sealed the only door, but Peebee and two Resistance soldiers managed to get in. Then… I don’t know, we heard gunfire, and screaming, and then there was this insanely loud crash. Jaal dashed off somewhere, saying something about a shortcut and telling me to come find you two. This is seriously bad, Cora, I don’t even know if Peebee is…”

“Peebee?” Vetra pulled up her omni-tool. “Peebee, come in. Peebee? Pelessaria B’Sayle, answer me!”

Nothing. Just silence.

“Jaal?” Vetra tried next. “Jaal, come in. Jaal! Oh for the – why aren’t you people answering me?!”

“So much for constant radio communication,” Liam muttered.

“Come on, we have to find them,” Cora said. “Liam, lead the way. Rhy, want to join us?”

Rhy nodded. “Anything to end this mess.”

 

 

When Peebee came back to her senses, the first thing she noticed was the head-splitting pain in her brain that she’d become all too familiar with lately. It was almost bad enough to block out the soreness in her muscles and the taste of blood in her mouth. Almost.

With a groan, Peebee forced herself to open her eyes, but regretted the action immediately. She was lying in a pile of rubble in one of the corridors that led to the room where the Prefect had been the last time, but she wasn’t alone. The kett that had attacked them were dead around her, but so were Sedi and Edrin, both of them lying a few feet away from Peebee in a pool of blue blood. There was a hole in the ceiling above them, so they’d probably fallen through the floor after… after Peebee’s barrier had collapsed. _I did this. They died because I couldn’t… Because I overworked myself. Because I tried to push myself too far. Dammit. Dammit._

Peebee’s legs were shaking and she felt more than dizzy, but she felt like she owed it to Sedi and Edrin to make sure that… that nothing could be done. So she pulled herself up, used the nearest wall for balance, and wobbled over to the two angaran soldiers. No pulse, no breathing. They were just as dead as the kett were.

“Dammit,” Peebee muttered, this time out loud, and tried to open her omni-tool. “Cora? Jaal? Liam? Anyone?”

The only response she got was static. Either the comms were down, or they were also… _No. No, they have each other, I’m sure they’re fine. I’m just being paranoid._

The hallway seemed to be empty, aside from the bodies. Considering that the only entrance was blocked by rocks, it was also likely to stay that way. _This is the place Ryder is supposed to be. Maybe… maybe I can find her, alone, without any kett. Maybe she’ll listen to me._

After a quick application of medi-gel (it eased the muscle pain but did little to help with the brain overload), Peebee began a slow wobble towards the big room where they had fought the Prefect. It was an infuriatingly slow walk because she kept on feeling like she was going to fall over, but she did get there eventually. And it was just as empty as the hallway. Even emptier, if you counted the fact that there weren’t even bodies in the room.

“Great,” Peebee sighed. _I walked all this way with my brain probably being turned into pudding in my head, and there’s nothing here. This was all for nothing. Edrin and Sedi died for nothing. They –_

Suddenly Peebee saw something on one of the tables that definitely shouldn’t have been there, and she continued her wobbling. It was a pair of biotic restrainers, sort of like handcuffs for people with biotics. But the kett didn’t have them, and the angara didn’t have them; and why would Ryder bring restrainers for herself? It didn’t make any sense.

“Hello, Peebee,” Ryder’s – or not Ryder’s – voice suddenly greeted, and when Peebee turned around, she saw Ryder walking out of the elevator and right towards her. Her voice was just as monotone as it had been on Korvath. Her appearance, however, was vastly different. Instead of her usual white armor, she was wearing all black, and the weapons strapped to her waist definitely looked like kett design instead of Initiative. Her hair was also down, not up in a ponytail, and it looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week even if it had been only two days. _What the hell has she been doing?_

“Ryder,” Peebee swallowed, quickly hiding the biotic restrainers behind her back. “Ryder, I know you’re in there somewhere. You snapped out of this once already. You can do it again; I know you can.”

In truth, Peebee was just playing for time. She was in no condition to fight Ryder, and the only way she had any hope of capturing her was with the biotic restrainers. But to do that, she would have to get closer. A lot closer.

“Ryder is no longer here, like I said before,” not-Ryder stated. She was getting closer, but still not close enough. “Tell me, Peebee, have you managed to deduce who I am? Who you are speaking to?”

“Gil thinks SAM got hacked and that, in turn, means that Ryder also got hacked, in a sense. But who I’m talking to? You keep saying that Ryder isn’t here, but I don’t believe that. She is somewhere in there, and I bet she can hear everything I say. So I’m talking to _her_.”

“An interesting point. Perhaps that is indeed the issue with – “

“Why are you here?” Peebee cut in. _Almost close enough…_ “The Resistance said you’re looking for something. What is it? What is worth this much death and destruction?”

“Knowledge.”

As Ryder took one more step forward, Peebee decided to risk it. She plunged forward with the biotic restraints in hand, but her head was still pounding, and she missed. Not by much, but missed, and the next thing she knew, she was up in the air with Ryder holding her with her biotics. And it wasn’t gentle holding, oh no; every moment the biotic field surrounding Peebee got tighter and tighter until she couldn’t breathe properly. And all the while Ryder just stood there with her right arm stretched out, no expression whatsoever on her stoic face.

“Ryder,” Peebee managed to cough, trying desperately to claw at the invisible fingers around her neck. “Sara, I c-can’t breathe.”

“I know.” There wasn’t even a hint of emotion in Ryder’s voice, and for Peebee, that was the scariest part. Sara didn’t sound the least bit like herself. Sure, the body was hers, but that voice was so mechanical it made her sound like a robot and – _dammit, my windpipe will be in bits after this._

“P-please stop,” Peebee tried to beg with what little remained of the air in her lungs. “Y-you – this isn’t you, Ryder.”

“Sara!” Jaal’s voice suddenly echoed in the hallway, and at the corner of her eye, Peebee could see him running towards them with rifle in hand. “Sara, dearest, let go of her! You’re strangling her!”

“I guess I could smash her head against the wall if you’d prefer?” the mechanical Sara-voice suggested. Peebee tried to struggle twice as hard as before, no matter how much it hurt her head, but it still did nothing.

“Sara, Peebee is your friend,” Jaal continued, and Peebee could hear the desperation in his voice. “You don’t want to hurt her; you care about her. She is important to you. Please, let her go.”

“What’s the rifle for, Jaal?” Sara asked, completely ignoring his pleas. “Everyone here knows you’re not going to shoot me. You don’t have it in you.”

“Maybe not,” Jaal agreed, “but I never said I would shoot _you_.”

With one shift movement, Jaal lifted his gun and fired directly at the lights above them. They exploded with a loud crack, and Ryder flinched enough for the biotic field to dissolve around Peebee and she fell onto the floor, desperately gasping for air. Jaal was already running towards her, but Peebee pointed at the biotic restrainers lying on the floor a few meters away.

“Get her… before…”

Jaal nodded in understanding, but just when he was about to reach for the restrainers, Ryder flung him to the wall with her biotics, grabbing the restrainers herself and smashing them to pieces. _How did she… She isn’t that strong, or maybe…_ Jaal grunted and joined Peebee on the floor as he fell down. Ryder was still glowing with the purple of her biotics as she walked towards them, and Peebee was just about to start begging for mercy again when Ryder suddenly slapped herself and fell to her knees.

“Stop,” Sara mumbled, and to Peebee’s great joy she suddenly sounded like herself again instead of a mindless killing machine. “Stop it.”

“Sara?” Jaal whispered, but Ryder kept on shaking her head for some reason.

“Jaal, don’t.” Now it was Sara who was begging, and Peebee saw Jaal’s pupils dilate when he heard the emotion in her voice. “Please, no, don’t – I can’t – “

“Sara?” Jaal tried again. “Darling?”

Just when Jaal looked like he was about to leap over to her, Sara lifted her hand and shook her head even harder, pleading him not to come any closer. Jaal obeyed, albeit reluctantly, _probably because he’d do anything Ryder told him to_.

“Stay back,” Sara warned, and her voice was starting to sound pretty strained, like she was in pain. _No wonder, if she’s literally fighting her own brain_. _I know what that’s like._ “I can’t – Peebee, I’m _so_ sorry, I couldn’t – I tried to – You two have to get out of here. Right now. Before it – before I – ”

“I’m not leaving you, Sara,” Jaal insisted while Peebee struggled to get back up on her feet. “Tell me what I can do. Tell me how I can help you.”

“You – can’t.” Suddenly Sara inhaled sharply and clasped her own head, squeezing her eyes shut. Her breathing was unsteady, just like it had been during the Archon crisis what felt like ages ago, but now Peebee could see tears in her eyes as well. “SAM is everywhere. He – I can’t – You need to get to the Hyperion. Scott will – ugh, dammit! Hyperion, Scott, fix! GO! NOW!”

“Jaal, come on,” Peebee urged when she finally managed to somewhat move again. Jaal, however, seemed to be locked in place. “We can’t help her if she kills us here. Live to fight another day.”

“But Sara – “

“Is fighting very hard to give us a chance to live! Don’t waste it! Come on!”

“GO!” Sara screamed. She practically threw them out of the room with her biotics, and before they could even try go get up once again – _I’m getting sick of being treated like a ragdoll_ –, Ryder slammed the doors shut right in front of them. Peebee could actually see Jaal’s heart breaking when he looked at Sara one last time. If Ryder was in physical pain, then Jaal was definitely dealing with the emotional side of it. To be honest, Peebee was a bit surprised he wasn’t in tears already.

“Stay strong, my darling,” Jaal whispered wistfully at the closed door, and half a second later Peebee heard footsteps in the hallway.

“The kett,” she muttered in horror. “Jaal, I can’t – I can’t fight, I feel like… I feel like death. We have to get out of here.”

Jaal seemed to finally snap out of his trance when he saw the kett running towards them. With a stern nod, he grabbed Peebee’s arm and started running.

 

 

“Over there!” Liam pointed towards the rocks that had sealed in Peebee and the Resistance members. “That’s where I last saw them. I – “

“Jaal!” Vetra suddenly gasped, and when Liam turned around, Jaal was indeed running towards them – from the opposite direction and motionless Peebee on his arms. “What happened? Is Peebee – “

“She’s hurt, bad,” Jaal said quickly when he caught up with the rest of the team. “She passed out just moments ago. And the kett are right on our heels. We have to go, now.”

“But Ryder – “ Liam tried to argue but Jaal cut him short.

“No time to explain. Need to get back to the Tempest.”

“But the base!” Rhy objected. “We can’t just leave it in kett hands!”

“Will you please just trust me?!” Jaal snapped. “This isn’t just about one base. The only way we take anything back from the kett is if we fix this entire _skutting_ mess! If we stay here, we’re all dead. To the Tempest, now.”

“We’ll do as Jaal says,” Cora nodded. “Everyone, full retreat, now. Rhy, can you get word to the Resistance?”

“What’s left of us,” Rhy sighed. “But I trust you. I’ll give my report to Evfra – I’m sure he’ll trust you as well. Good luck with whatever you’re planning.”

As Rhy ran off to find the remaining Resistance soldiers, the Tempest crew ran back to their ship. With Drack covering for them, they managed to get onto the ship without further injuries. Peebee was immediately rushed to the med bay to be treated by Lexi, and as soon as the Tempest was out of the reach of the kett forces, everyone turned to Jaal for answers.

“So,” Cora began. “What the hell happened back there, and where are we going?”

 


	9. Resolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title for this chapter: Vetra being a mom-friend

“We have to get to the Hyperion,” Jaal announced. He hadn’t even bothered to put down his gear after getting back to the ship. _It’s not a long flight from Voeld to Meridian, might as well keep everything on_. As Lexi worked on Peebee in the med bay, the rest of the ground team was gathered in the hangout hallway just outside, as usual.

“Hyperion?” Cora echoed. “But it’s full of kett, we’ll – “

“Sara told us to go there,” Jaal interrupted. “She said that’s where we’ll find Scott and start fixing everything.”

“What?” Vetra frowned. “But Scott left Meridian, it says so on the logs, and then the Condor was… How can he be on the Hyperion?”

“Never mind that, you actually spoke to Ryder?” Liam asked with wide eyes. “The real Ryder, not whatever is controlling her?”

“Yes,” Jaal nodded. “And she told us to go to the Hyperion, so what are we waiting for?”

_Sara, choking Peebee with her biotics. Jaal holding the rifle in his hands but unable to point it at her. Peebee gasping for air. The voice that belonged to Sara but wasn’t hers. Peebee falling. Jaal slamming against the wall. Sara throwing them out, locking the door, the kett – We have to go. We have to do something. We have to fix this before… before…_

“Jaal, you need to calm down,” Cora said. “The rest of us have no idea what’s going on, Peebee is unconscious, and we literally just left an entire base in kett hands. Tell us what happened. Start at the beginning. Please.”

Jaal forced himself to take a deep breath. Cora was right; he and Peebee were the only ones who knew what had happened, and with Peebee unconscious, he had to fill the others in before they could do anything. _I can’t do this alone. We have to work together._

“When the fallen rocks sealed the door and Peebee stopped answering, I knew something had gone wrong, so I sent Liam to inform the rest of you before taking the long way down to the lower levels. But I was too late. When I finally found Peebee, she was being choked by Sara. With her biotics.”

Liam swallowed. “Choked? Actually _choked_?”

“Yes,” Jaal said quietly. “She wouldn’t stop, no matter what I said. So I shot at the lights above her. It caught Sara by surprise, and she let go of Peebee, but before I could help her, she pointed at these… they looked like handcuffs, but they were blue, and – “

“Biotic restrainers?” Cora deduced. “Where did she get those? We don’t have any on the ship, and the angara don’t use them…”

“If you had biotic restrainers, why didn’t you use them to capture Ryder?” Drack asked.

“We tried. But Sara just… threw me aside and smashed the restrainers. But just when I thought she was about to attack us again she came back, the real Sara. It was painful for her, but she told us to go to Meridian. Hyperion, Scott, fix. Those were the exact words before she kicked us out and locked the door. After that, more kett showed up, and when we started running… Peebee just….”

“Lexi will take care of Peebee, don’t worry,” Liam tried to smile. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, but… Hyperion, Scott, fix,” Vetra muttered, lost in thought. “Did Scott never actually leave Meridian? And the Condor exploding was just an elaborate distraction? Or did he leave but was kidnapped and taken back after the kett took over?”

“Only one way to find out,” Drack proclaimed. “Let’s head to Meridian.”

“It’s not that simple,” Cora argued. “It’s in kett control now, and much larger than one base on Voeld – and we couldn’t even handle that properly. We need a plan.”

“Yeah, because our plans have worked out so well this far,” Liam snorted. “We have an ML Box we can’t figure out, Peebee in the med bay for the third time in a row, a base in kett hands, and Ryder still on the run…”

“Kiddo has a point,” Drack nodded. “Our plans haven’t been working out so well lately.”

“But we have to go!” Jaal snapped. “Sara herself told us to!”

“If it was the real Sara, it’s probably not a trap,” Vetra pointed out. “Maybe we could ask the Resistance for help? Or Reyes?”

“It’s a start,” Cora agreed. “Jaal, contact Evfra for backup. Vetra, you do the same with Reyes. I’ll go check up on Peebee.”

 

 

When Peebee woke up, she felt like she was floating. Everything was so weightless and nice and smelled like lavender. The med bay looked almost pink in the _– med bay? Ah. I’ve been properly drugged._

“Peebee?” Cora’s voice called, and when Peebee blinked, she could make out a somewhat human shape on her right. Everything was still more or less pink, though. “Lexi, I think she’s waking up!”

“Peebee, can you hear me? Blink twice if you can.” Now Lexi was on her left, and Peebee did as she was told.

“Good, that’s good. Can you speak? If it hurts, you don’t have to try.”

“I…” Peebee swallowed. It didn’t hurt, nothing did, but that was probably because of the drugs. “Yeah, I… Feels weird. Like bubbles. In my throat.”

Cora frowned at Lexi.

“It’s the painkillers,” Lexi explained. “But I’m glad she can talk. That means her windpipe wasn’t damaged too severely.”

“Windpipe?” Peebee echoed. Then the memories came flooding back. _Ryder glowing, not being able to breath, being thrown around like a doll, running and everything going black –_ “I passed out, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Cora nodded. “Jaal brought you back to the ship.”

“And Ryder?”

“Got away,” Cora sighed.

“But – but she told us to go to Meridian! She – “

“Jaal told us everything,” Cora cut in. “And we’re looking into it.”

“Looking into it?” Peebee frowned, trying to sit up. _I didn’t nearly die so that we could just ‘look into’ things!_ “What’s there to look into? If the key to this mess is there, on Meridian, on the Hyperion, we need to – “

“ _You_ need to rest,” Lexi interrupted. “Peebee, you’re badly injured. This is serious. In addition to the damage to your neck and lungs, my scans also show stress in your brain and several injuries on your back and arms. You overloaded your biotics again, didn’t you?”

Peebee hesitated. “I…”

“You were cut off from Jaal and Liam,” Cora said. “What happened after that?”

Peebee sighed. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk about her stupid mistakes, but Cora had to know. So, she went through everything that had happened, from Sedi and Edrin dying to finding Ryder.

“Biotic restrainers?” Lexi seemed to process the information. “Do you think they used those on Ryder?”

“I hadn’t even considered that,” Cora mumbled. “The kett having her bound in case… in case the real Ryder came back? I guess it would make sense. But how did she get out? Did they simply remove the restrainers once they had the base?”

“And where did the kett even get biotic restrainers?” Peebee added. “They don’t – wait. The Initiative. Whoever betrayed us. Got it.”

“This could be good news,” Lexi said. “If the kett don’t trust Ryder enough to let her run free, it could be mean that their control over her is easily broken.”

“Well, she’s free now,” Peebee muttered. “She smashed the restrainers.”

“That could benefit us, if we ever run into her again.” Cora tried to sound hopeful. “I doubt she’ll stay on Voeld for long. You said she was after ‘knowledge’? She’s probably gotten it by now, whatever it was.”

“But what knowledge is on Voeld?” Peebee wondered. The room was starting to look a little less pink by now and speaking made her throat tingle. Not enough to be painful, but still. “Knowledge on… how to make perfect ice cubes? How to… keep your toes warm in the snow?”

 

 

“But Evfra, we – “ Jaal tried to argue, but Evfra was being a stubborn fool.

“You had your chance, Jaal. I told you, if the Pathfinder attacks the Resistance, we will have to defend ourselves. We already lost enough people on Voeld; we’re not going on a suicide mission to a kett controlled _planet_.”

“How will we ever solve this if we won’t – “

He never got to finish the question before Evfra hang up, and Jaal nearly punched the screen in front of him. Unsurprisingly, Evfra was upset about the losses the Resistance had suffered on Voeld, but how could he be so blind that he couldn’t see the solution right in front of him? If Sara wasn’t stopped, even more lives would be lost. And to stop Sara, they needed to go to Meridian. Take a risk to avoid an even bigger risk. But no, apparently the relative peace they had enjoyed for the past few months had turned Evfra into a –

There was suddenly a knock of the tech lab door, and Jaal took a deep breath to calm himself before answering. “Come in.”

“Done with your call with Evfra?” Vetra asked, closing the door behind her.

“Yes,” Jaal muttered. “He’s… not pleased about Voeld.”

Vetra nodded in understanding. “Not surprising.”

“No, but… Did you have better luck?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “Reyes can’t dispatch anyone to our aid before he’s figured out if there are any backstabbers in the Collective ranks. And at the moment, that leaves us…”

“On our own,” Jaal concluded. “Once again.”

Vetra snorted. “Should be our slogan by now.”

“Did you hear anything from Peebee?”

“She’s awake and recovering. Which is good news, obviously, but that’s not why I came here.”

Jaal looked at her, puzzled. “What then?”

“This.” Vetra pulled something out of her pocket, a small thing that fit easily in her palms. “Is this an angaran mine?”

“I… don’t think so,” Jaal frowned. “If it is, it’s something I haven’t seen before. Why?”

“Cora and I landed in a room full of these in the kett base,” Vetra explained. “The Resistance member who found us – Rhy – said they’d put these up to stop the kett from getting any info from their computers. But I managed to disarm a few before she showed up, and they looked suspiciously like Initiative tech to me. Not entirely, they’ve been modified, that’s why I checked with you, but… It feels off. I didn’t say anything back at the base because Rhy was there, but now…”

“The Initiative could have supplied the base with resources,” Jaal offered, and Vetra nodded.

“That’s the explanation I’m hoping for, yeah. But the other explanation…”

“Is that someone in the Resistance has also betrayed us somehow,” Jaal sighed, rubbing his temples. “How deep does this _skutting_ mess go?”

“There’s one way to find out,” Vetra said. “Rhy disarmed the mines. Can you look into her, see if there’s anything suspicious about her?”

“Anything also to go on than just one name?”

“She said she’s a Squad Leader and has a sister named Lhy.”

“That’s something,” Jaal nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.”

 

 

Suvi left the bridge and headed straight towards the med bay once they were far enough out in space, away from Voeld and the kett. From what she’d heard, the mission had been a complete failure, with Ryder getting away and Peebee passing out. Suvi was desperate to see the ground team, to hear more, but she didn’t get very far before she practically crashed into Liam.

“Is Peebee – “ Suvi tried to ask but Liam was way ahead of her.

“Awake and kicking, according to Cora. And no, Ryder is not here. Long story, no time, short version: Ryder nearly strangled Peebee to death. Literally, with her biotics. And now we’re heading to Meridian where we might run into her again. And to keep anyone else from nearly dying, we need to get the ML Box figured out. Now.”

Suvi’s brain was going into overdrive trying to process everything Liam had just said.

“I – obviously, yes, but – “

“I’ll even help. I know I’m not nearly as smart as you and Gil, but there has to be something. I can’t just sit around, waiting to see if… if…”

Suvi nodded. “I understand. Let’s go find Gil.”

 

 

 

“Squad Leader Rhy is dead,” Commander Anjik Do Xeel, the head officer on Voeld, announced, and Jaal stared at the screen in front of him.

“What? When?”

“Soon after you left the base. It looked like something had exploded right next to her.”

“Like… a mine?”

Commander Anjik shrugged. “Maybe. Why?”

_But Vetra said Rhy disarmed the mines. Unless… She didn’t betray the Resistance. She was being played. We’re all being played, and we don’t even know by whom._

“Commander, are you aware of the mines placed in the kett base?”

“It was a request made by Lhy, the head scientist there. Jaal, where are you going with this?”

“Do you know anything about the mines?”

“No. Should I?”

Jaal thought about it for a second. _If Vetra is right… I have to be careful, just in case._ “What about Lhy? Did she survive?”

Commander Anjik nodded. “She evacuated safely, yes.”

“Does _she_ know about the mines?”

“She’s a scientist, why would she know about the mines?”

“Then who does know about the mines?”

“Rhy’s squad put them up, but they’re all dead by now! Jaal, honestly, what is so special about these mines?”

Jaal sighed. “I need to ask for a favor, Commander.”

“Ask, then.”

“I need to know who supplied the mines to the base and if anyone besides Rhy’s squad was aware of them.”

“Reasonable enough, though I have no idea what you need this information for. I’ll see if I can find anything and contact you if I do.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

 

 

The team meeting that night was a mess, and half of the crew couldn’t even attend. Lexi was taking care of a protesting Peebee, and Gil, Suvi, and Liam had asked to be excused because apparently, they had some great idea for the ML Box. That left Cora, Jaal, Vetra, Drack, and Kallo standing in a circle in the meeting room and arguing about the million things that were wrong: the ML Box, Peebee getting injured, Ryder getting away, the Hyperion attack, Scott, the Initiative betrayal, possible Collective and Resistance betrayals, and the refusals from both Reyes and Evfra for any kind of backup.

_Three days,_ Cora thought to herself. _Three days and we’ve barely gotten anywhere with this mess._

“We have to go to the Hyperion,” Drack kept on insisting. “It’s the best lead we have right now.”

“Leads won’t help us if we die,” Vetra pointed out. “We need a plan, and a _good_ plan this time.”

“We could wait for Reyes and Commander Anjik to finish their investigations?” Kallo suggested.

“Every moment we spend waiting, someone else suffers,” Jaal said sternly. “We have no idea what the kett are doing to Sara, or to Scott, if they have him as well. Too much waiting can get someone killed.”

“And not enough waiting can get _us_ killed,” Vetra retorted.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Cora sighed. “I agree that the Hyperion is our best bet, but we can’t go in unprepared, not like we did to Voeld. So think. We’ve all spent enough time on Meridian and the Hyperion. How do we go in and out without getting killed?”

Everyone turned to look at each other with varying expressions. Drack and Jaal still looked fairly frustrated, Vetra was thoughtful, and Kallo worried. Cora could sympathize with all of them.

“An alarm,” Vetra suddenly said, catching everyone’s attention. “Why does it have to be anything complicated? A simple fire alarm will empty the Hyperion in a matter of minutes.”

“Can you do that remotely?” Cora asked.

“Not from the ship, but I reckon that getting Gil within a reasonable distance will do the trick.”

“What about SAM?” Jaal asked. “If he’s really been hacked, we’ll need to prepare for that as well. He could have access to the entire Hyperion.”

“They could vent the ship while we’re inside,” Drack agreed.

“Could we use something to mask our life signs?” Vetra suggested.

Cora tapped her chin. “Something like the Ghost Storm technology we used when we first went after Meridian?”

“That created fake signals,” Jaal said. “We would have to do the opposite.”

“We really need Suvi or Gil for this,” Drack muttered.

“The ML Box,” Kallo said suddenly. “If it was strong enough to interfere with Ryder’s SAM implant, who says it can’t interfere with SAM itself?”

“We’d have to adjust the signal so that it doesn’t hurt Ryder as well,” Cora said. “But maybe…”

“We’re all in agreement we should go find Suvi and the others?” Vetra concluded, and everyone nodded.

 

 

It had been ten hours since Cora and the others had marched up to Gil, Suvi, and Liam with their ideas on how to get to the Hyperion: mask life signs or mess up SAM with the ML Box. Ten long hours. Suvi had gone to sleep five hours ago. Liam three hours ago. Jaal had taken his place only to fall asleep on the tech room floor. Even Kallo’s salarian brain had decided it needed a break. Gil was the only one who was awake even ten hours later, his body so full of caffeine his hands were beginning to shake. But he knew the stakes. He’d seen Peebee’s unconscious body being carried to the med bay. He’d heard all the fighting in the meeting room. And if figuring out this damned box would help them out of this nightmare, then Gil would figure it out or pass out trying.

“Any progress?” Vetra asked as she walked into the tech room with a cup of coffee in hand. Gil took it without even looking up from the ML Box.

“I understand the part that affects biotic implants,” Gil muttered. His voice sounded hollow even to himself. “It’s a fancy jammer, nothing more. But the part that messed up Ryder’s brain isn’t a jammer. Or it is, kinda, maybe, but it’s a completely alien jammer. Do you know what rootkits are? And phishing? Doesn’t matter. Because this is supposed to be a jammer but it’s not and I can’t make sense of it no matter how hard I try. I thought that… I can’t turn it on, not again, it’s too risky. But I don’t know what else to…”

“For the record, I do know what rootkits and phishing are, thanks for asking,” Vetra puffed. “But doesn’t that lean more towards hacking than jammers?”

“It does,” Gil sighed. “I told you I don’t understand it. I’m not a hacker, I’m an engineer!”

“We know a hacker,” Vetra said tentatively, and Gil finally moved his eyes from the ML Box to her.

“You’re not suggesting…? Reyes isn’t technically even a hacker, is he? He’s a smuggler.”

“He might have ideas.”

“Taking a yet another detour to Kadara wastes time, and that’s something we don’t have,” Gil muttered, turning back to the ML Box. “Give me a few more hours, Vetra. And check if Suvi is awake yet. She had some ideas about the life sign masking.”

Vetra hesitated for a few seconds. “Are you sure you won’t pass out and hit your head on the mystery box if I leave?”

“Please, I have coffee. I’ll live for at least three more hours.”

 

 

Cora was having breakfast in the galley when she tentatively opened her email. She hadn’t exactly replied to anyone’s inquiries after Liam and Vetra’s mutiny vid, and she still wasn’t sure she should. Cora groaned when she saw that she had received a yet another email from Tann requesting a vid call. There was also one from Addison who had gone from yelling at Cora to wanting to know her opinion on the defenses of Prodromos, Kandros who wondered the same thing about the Nexus (and not-so-discreetly asked about Ryder in the same sentence), and Kesh who had managed to put together a cost estimate for the things Sara had broken on Voeld. And that was just the Initiative leadership: about a million other people wanted something from her as well.

Cora had handled a lot of administrative and legal work for Ryder when she had been her XO, sure. But this? Talking to people, solving everyone’s problems, answering every single stupid question? That had been all her. Cora couldn’t understand how Sara had done it. How one girl had managed to establish outposts, punch the Archon, control the Remnant, and still maintain good relations with everyone in the cluster. Maybe it was the famous Ryder charm. Sara had managed to smile her way onto everyone’s good side, hadn’t she? Hell, she’d even had Jaal smiling back at her three seconds after first contact. It all just seemed to come so naturally to her. People liked her because she was just herself; meanwhile Cora… well, she’d never been _that_ good with social situations. _Especially when the situation is ‘the girl who saved the cluster is now the enemy’._

“Something wrong?” a concerned voice suddenly asked, and when Cora turned around, she saw Vetra gazing over her shoulder.

“Just wondering how the hell Sara put up with these idiots all the time,” Cora muttered. “I’m not even the Pathfinder and they still bother me every single minute.”

“Well, as I recall, Ryder _didn’t_ put up with them. What did she say to Addison back then? ‘It’s hard to count how few fucks I give about Tann’? Something like that.”

“Yeah, but she could say it and get away with it,” Cora sighed. “If I say it, I’ll get fired at best.”

Vetra stared at her for a few seconds before Cora realized what she had just said.

“Oh, right. We mutinied. We’ll probably get fired anyway. Maybe I should tell them all to shut up for a change after all.”

Vetra snorted. “Could be worth whatever backlash it leads to.”

“Any progress on the ML Box?” Cora asked, changing the subject.

“Gil is still on it. And Suvi is up again too, working on the life sign masking.”

“Honest opinion, Vetra. How does it look?”

“Like we might have to ask Reyes for help again,” Vetra sighed. “I already suggested it to Gil, but he said going to Kadara would take too long. He may be right, but this could also take way too long if we don’t get anywhere with the damn box.”

“True,” Cora agreed. “I know we’re in a hurry, but… I hope they don’t work themselves to death, Gil and Suvi and everyone. I wish I knew more about tech so I could be of more help.”

“Well, I – “

Whatever Vetra was about to say was interrupted by Kallo practically falling through the doors to the crew quarters. He was still in his salarian version of pajamas but the look on his face was all but tired.

“I got it,” Kallo whispered when he saw Cora and Vetra staring at him. “I know how we’ll get to the Hyperion without being noticed.”


	10. Ploy

“This is risky, Kallo,” Suvi noted next to Kallo in the tech lab as she held a small white disc in her hand. “Are you sure you want to be the one to test it out?”

“Someone has to, and it was my idea,” Kallo, full of determination, nodded. “Do it. Turn it on.”

As everyone held their breaths, Suvi placed the disc on Kallo’s uniform, near his neck, and flipped the switch. _Still alive. Not a vegetable. Excellent. Doesn’t feel any different, though._

“Is it working?” Kallo asked Gil, who was monitoring three different screens in the lab.

“I can’t believe it,” Gil muttered with his eyes wide. “The scans all say… They all say you’re practically dead.”

“How do you feel, Kallo?” Vetra asked, and Kallo smiled victoriously.

“Completely the same. Still alive. Not a vegetable. It works! It actually works!”

“We can use it?” Cora looked at Gil, who nodded, still looking fairly stunned – though maybe that was just the sleep deprivation.

“There are no life signs,” Gil confirmed. “By all accounts, it should work. No computer on the Hyperion should be able to pick you up.”

Kallo couldn’t stop smiling even when Suvi turned off the prototype disc. When he had first brought his idea to Suvi and Gil, they’d been skeptical, naturally, but willing to try anything that could help. The core idea was simple enough: crank up the signal of the original L Box that turns people into vegetables until it removes all life signs, and then create a copy of that signal so that it doesn’t actually harm people but rather makes them _appear_ as dead when screened. The actual creation process had been a little less simple, but they’d finally gotten it to work. The prototype disc that Suvi was holding worked with the in-built shield generators of Initiative armor and thus cloaked the person wearing it with the fake signal. They would obviously need more copies than just the one prototype, but Kallo was ecstatic his idea had worked.

“We’ll have to start making more immediately,” Suvi said. “How many do you think we need?”

Cora looked at Lexi. “I’m guessing Peebee won’t be fit for combat?”

Peebee, sitting on one of the tables, made a face when Lexi shook her head.

“I’m feeling much better, you know,” she said, though there was still a slight rasp in her voice.

“Three missions, three injuries. You’re staying on the ship until you’ve recovered properly,” Lexi said sternly. Peebee must have not been feeling as well as she claimed since she didn’t argue further.

“And Drack?” Liam asked.

“Good to go,” Drack announced, and Lexi seemed to agree.

“The krogan heal fast. Drack has my permission to go out in the field if he feels he is ready.”

“So we have the usual team minus Peebee but plus Gil for the fire alarm,” Vetra concluded. “So we’ll need six uh… what are calling these discs again?”

“KLSM, of course,” Suvi smirked, and Liam groaned.

“More acronyms?”

“Kallo’s Life Sign Masking,” Suvi explained.

Kallo felt hesitant. “Isn’t that a bit long for a name?”

“Nonsense. It was your idea; you deserve to have your name on it.”

“Can we drop the S from the middle?” Gil suggested. “KLM wouldn’t be such a mouthful.”

“KLM sounds good,” even Liam agreed. “So, how long until we’ll have six copies of our fancy KLM discs?”

“Shouldn’t take too long with the two of us working on them,” Suvi said, nodding towards Gil. “Maybe a day? Two at most.”

“Then we should head towards Meridian and start preparing for our mission,” Cora said. “Vetra, any intel from Sid on the kett ships?”

“They seem to be sticking fairly close to Meridian, the Hyperion in particular,” Vetra said.

“I’ll take us in as close as I can without risking detection,” Kallo promised.

 

 

Soon after the team meeting, Jaal got a call from Commander Anjik. Since the tech lab was now a make-shift development factory for the KLM discs, he headed over to the bio lab to answer.

“Did you find out anything about the mines on Voeld?” Jaal asked immediately, and the Commander nodded.

“I did. The mines had apparently arrived from Kadara. We have a trade deal with the Collective, so it’s not unusual.”

“Hmm. Did Rhy make the order?”

“Yes, she did. Honestly, I still don’t know why this info matters to you, but at least tell me that it helps.”

“It does. Thank you, Commander,” Jaal nodded. “How are things on Voeld?”

Commander Anjik made a face. “We’ve been trying to take the base back from the kett, but after the losses we took… It’s not going well. I really hope that you and the Pathfinder crew have better ideas than we do.”

“We’re working on it. Can’t say much more right now, but it looks promising.”

“Good. We’re counting on you.”

And with that, Commander Anjik ended the call. _Great_ , Jaal thought to himself. _More pressure is exactly what we need right now. Though I suppose being counted on is better than being declared mutineers._

Jaal figured Vetra would want to know about Commander Anjik’s intel, and he eventually found her down the cargo bay, going through their stocks.

“Gil and Suvi asked for more parts for the KLM discs,” Vetra explained when she noticed Jaal jumping down. “We’re not exactly well-stocked right now, but I figured we could take apart a few of our older guns.”

“The discs are more important, yes,” Jaal agreed. “I heard from Commander Anjik. The mines you found on Voeld were from Kadara, bought from the Collective.”

“The Collective? Interesting,” Vetra said thoughtfully. “So they could be legitimate, considering that Reyes is our side, but what info on Voeld was so important they had to mine up the entire room? I wish I could have… never mind. Did Anjik say anything else?”

“Rhy was the one who apparently placed the order. Nothing else. But it’s strange, considering that the mines were also what probably killed Rhy after we left.”

“’Strange’ seems to be the name of the game,” Vetra sighed. “What does your gut tell you, Jaal? Was Rhy in on the conspiracy thing or is she an innocent victim? Were the mines legit and she just made a mistake?”

“Her death would suggest that she is a victim, but… I’m not sure. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Crossed and double-crossed?”

“Something like that,” Jaal muttered. “I tried to look into her sister, Lhy, as well, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She was a scientist based on Voeld, just like Rhy said, and she evacuated from the base before the kett took over. She’s currently on Aya.”

“Do you have anyone on Aya who could keep an eye on her? Just in case?” Vetra asked, and Jaal nodded.

“A few people. I’ll contact them and make sure they keep a low profile.”

“Good. It never hurts to be too careful. As for the rest of it…”

Jaal’s eyes widened. “You have an idea?”

“’Idea’ may be overstating it, but it’s weird that everything points to Kadara, right?” Vetra pointed out. “Scott, the Condor, Reyes and his possible Collective betrayals, now these mines… It can’t all be a coincidence, can it?”

“The mines could turn out to be completely legitimate and Scott wasn’t even on the Condor,” Jaal reminded her. “But you’re right. It’s definitely possible that there’s something on Kadara we’re missing.”

“Well, can’t do anything about it right now,” Vetra sighed. “I haven’t heard anything from Reyes in a while, and we have a mission to prepare for. Let’s see what we find on Meridian before focusing on anything else.”

“Agreed,” Jaal nodded. “Well then, you said we need to take apart some weapons? Just show me which ones.”

 

 

After the team meeting had ended, everyone seemed to be doing something important. Gil and Suvi built the KLM discs, Kallo flew the ship, Cora, Liam, and Drack planned their assault on the Hyperion… and meanwhile Peebee was all but dragged to the med bay by Lexi for a checkup. She felt so useless, just sitting there while Lexi poked at her neck. With the amount of nonsense they had all gone through during the last missions, Peebee wanted nothing more than to help, to figure this thing out. But no, she’d gotten injured – not once, not twice, but three times – and now she wasn’t allowed to do anything anymore.

“Are you feeling well?” Lexi asked, snapping Peebee out of her thoughts. “You’re not being nearly as defiant a patient as usual.”

“I’m fine,” Peebee muttered. “Just get this over with.”

“Does your windpipe still hurt?”

“No.”

“Any feelings of dryness or burning when you speak?”

“No.”

“How about – “

“No.”

Lexi sighed. “Peebee, no matter what you say, I can’t let you take part in the Meridian mission. It’s too dangerous after the injuries you’ve sustained recently.”

“But they need me!” Peebee argued, but as soon as she raised her voice, her throat did in fact hurt a little. She did her best not to show it, though. “The place will be full of kett, and Ryder might be there, and Scott too, and – “

“And you will only slow the team down if you pass out again,” Lexi interrupted, and Peebee shut her mouth. _She’s right. I hate it, but she’s right. I hate this whole thing. I hate everything._ “Listen to me, Peebee, just this once. Sit this one out. Let your body recover from everything it has gone through lately. Once you’re ready to give your all again without fear of passing out or worse, I promise I will give you clearance to rejoin the ground team.”

“But I want to help,” Peebee muttered.

Lexi smiled a little. “Well, fighting is hardly the only thing you’re good at, right? There are other ways to be of use, I’m sure.”

_Other ways to… use… use…_

“That’s it,” Peebee whispered. “Lexi, you’re a genius! Well, right now at least! Sorry, gotta run, need to do this before anyone else gets hurt!”

“But – “ Lexi never got to finish her checkup before Peebee bolted out of the door. She dashed to the upper deck, her throat hurting only a little bit, and practically kicked the tech lab door open.

“The ML Box!” Peebee announced as Suvi and Gil stared at her in bewilderment. “Give me! Will handle it! Now! Idea!”

“Uh, here you go,” Gil handed her the box from one of the tables. “Just be careful not to – “

Too late; Peebee was already out of the door again. With the ML Box in hand, she ran to her own little room and locked the door behind her.

“No one else will get hurt,” she muttered at the box. “Because we will _use_ you.”

 

 

The team meeting that night was a lot more hopeful than what Cora had gotten used to lately. Gil informed them that he and Suvi had made good progress with the KLM discs, and according to Kallo, they would reach Meridian sometime next morning, which meant they wouldn’t have to stall their infiltration plan much longer.

“Okay, everyone who is supposed to be here is here,” Cora began. “Suvi is working on the discs, Kallo is flying… Where is Peebee?”

“Still locked in her room,” Gil said. “Refuses to say what’s going on, but apparently she knows what to do with the ML Box now and doesn’t want anyone bothering her.”

“Well, if she manages to figure it out, good,” Cora sighed. “Hopefully she won’t overwork herself, though. But the rest of us have to go through the plan for tomorrow. Our ETA to Meridian is about 12 hours, which gives of plenty of time to rest and prepare ourselves. Now, as intel from Sid confirmed, the kett ships seem to be sticking close to Meridian. This means we probably won’t be able to land near the Hyperion, but Meridian is quite large, so as soon as Kallo sees an opening, he will take us there, no matter how far away from the Hyperion itself that is actually is. From there, our first goal is to find an access panel for Gil so that he can trigger a fire alarm in the Hyperion. That should give Squad Alpha – Liam, Vetra, and Drack – a chance to slip in undetected, while Squad Omega – myself and Jaal – escorts Gil back to the ship before rejoining the mission. Everything clear so far?”

“When do we active the KLM discs?” Liam asked.

“The sooner, the better,” Gil said. “I’d say even before we land, just to be safe.”

“Then we’ll agree to turn on the KLM discs while we approach Meridian,” Cora nodded. “More questions?”

Gil raised his hand. “Do I get a gun?”

Cora nodded again. “A small sidearm. I trust you remember how to use it?”

“In theory, sure. In practice…”

“Don’t worry, that’s why Jaal and I will stick with you until we get you back to safety.”

“And while you do that, we try to find Scott?” Vetra cut in.

“Yes, that’s our main objective once we reach the Hyperion,” Cora said. “According to Sara herself, Scott Ryder is on the Hyperion and we need to find him in order to fix everything, so that’s what we’re going to do. Squad Alpha will start the search from the docking bay, Squad Omega from the cryo deck, and we will meet eventually on the bridge _if_ we haven’t found Scott.”

“And if we do?” Jaal asked and Drack snorted.

“More like _when_ we do.”

“Depends on the situation, naturally, but if at all possible, get him to the Tempest and end the mission.”

“That’s it?” Liam frowned. “We won’t do anything about SAM or the kett or whatever?”

Cora shook her head. “We don’t have the resources for that right now; we’re just one ship, one team. We have to trust Ryder’s intel and focus on Scott for now. Unless some exceptionally good opportunity presents itself, Scott Ryder is the main focus of this mission. We have to find him and get him out of there before the kett and possibly hacked SAM see through our fire alarm and KLM plans.”

“Understood,” Jaal nodded, and everyone else followed suit. “Solve one problem before tackling the others.”

“Exactly,” Cora said. “Now, any other questions before we all head to bed?”

“What if you run into Ryder again?” Lexi asked a bit hesitantly, and everyone turned their eyes to the floor. “She already hurt Peebee. I don’t want a repeat of the last mission.”

“Unless Peebee manages to figure out the ML Box before morning, we don’t have a lot of options,” Cora sighed. “If we run into Sara, we run. Avoid combat best you can. We can’t suffer any more injuries than we already have.”

“It would help if we had biotics restrainers,” Vetra noted. “Shame those aren’t exactly common in the Initiative.”

“There could be some on the Hyperion,” Liam said. “We could try to look.”

“Remember that Scott is the focus,” Cora reminded them. “But if you do happen to come across any restrainers, it would probably be a good idea them with us.”

“One more thing,” Gil cut in. “It’s probably also for the best if we don’t use the comms too much because SAM would definitely pick that up, but complete radio silence is kinda difficult, isn’t it?”

“Agreed,” Cora nodded. “So, radio silence _unless_ we find Scott or have to call for an evac. Understood?”

“We’ll probably get swarmed as soon as we contact each other,” Liam sighed.

“So breaking the radio silence essentially means ending the mission,” Jaal concluded.

“Pretty much,” Cora agreed. “That’s why we have to be careful.”

“It’ll be tough, no doubt about it,” Vetra mumbled. “But we have a plan this time, and the KLM discs give an advantage that our enemy doesn’t know of. We can pull this through.”

“Definitely,” Drack nodded in agreement, and everyone else joined in too.

“This won’t be a repeat of Voeld,” Jaal said sternly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally have time to write again!


	11. Ingenuity

Gil had been in the cargo hold of the Tempest often enough prepping the ground team for their missions: checking their jetpacks, fastening their armors, that kind of stuff, whatever to help in their fight against the kett. What he hadn’t done was _this_ , being an actual part of the ground team instead of just prepping them. It was exhilarating. And terrifying. And he kind of felt like he wanted to run laps around the hold or do push-ups or something just to get rid of all the adrenaline.

“Calm down, kid,” Drack said and slapped Gil on the back, nearly causing him to fall over. “Save that energy for when we land.”

“Trying, trying,” Gil muttered. _Or maybe I should stop trying, that might help with the horrible stress and pressure and – nope not thinking about that._

“Opening discovered about 10 kilometers to the north from the Hyperion,” Kallo’s voice echoed through the comms. “Starting approach. Prepare for landing.”

“Just 10 kilometers? Way better than I expected,” Liam noted, and Cora hummed in agreement.

“Yeah, nice surprises for once. Alright everyone, turn on your KLM discs.”

Following Cora’s command, Gil and everyone else tapped the small discs at the back of their necks. Suvi – who definitely should have been asleep after working late into the night to finish all the discs – glanced at the small monitor in her hands and smiled happily.

“All life signs gone,” she confirmed. “You should be good to go.”

“Perfect,” Cora breathed, sounding almost relieved. _I guess the discs not working would have ruined this thing before it even properly started._ “Alright, once that door opens, Squad Alpha, take point. Jaal and I will stick close to Gil.”

“I wish we could bring in the Nomad,” Vetra sighed. “10 kilometers on foot is…”

“We have the jetpacks, and Meridian is full of different kinds of shortcuts. We’ll be fine,” Jaal assured her.

“That aside, do you think Peebee is still alive?” Liam cut in. “I mean, has anyone even seen her since she locked herself in her room?”

“I stopped by earlier, but she just yelled at me to go away,” Lexi said, crossing her arms. “I don’t think she’s slept at all since yesterday. It’s worrying.”

“I’m sure she’s just too focused to close her eyes,” Gil tried to grin, but the adrenaline made even that a bit shaky. “Really, if she had some weird ‘eureka!’ about the ML Box, I say let’s leave her alone until she’s ready to share it with us.”

“What’s eureka?” Jaal asked, but Cora shook her head.

“Not important right now. Feel that? We’re just about to land. Helmets on, everyone. We’re heading out.”

Cora was right; with a soft thump, the Tempest landed somewhere on Meridian, and the cargo bay door opened soon after. Gil’s already high adrenaline levels doubled when he pulled on his standard Initiative issue helmet. With Lexi and Suvi telling them good luck, Liam, Vetra, and Drack were the first ones to jump out of the ship. With Cora and Jaal at his side, Gil took a deep breath and followed suit.

 

 

Vetra had to admit that Jaal had been right; the 10 kilometers to the Hyperion were easily reduced to at least a half of that with all the Remnant transportation devices on Meridian and the fact that they could just jump over that weird Remnant goo with their jetpacks. Still, they couldn’t exactly run around carelessly, considering that this was supposed to be a stealthy mission. The whole point of the KLM discs and bringing Gil along was to make sure the kett wouldn’t notice them. Thankfully, they hadn’t even run into any enemies so far. Vetra speculated that most of the kett were on the Hyperion, especially if Sid had been right about their small numbers.

“Getting closer now,” Drack muttered on Vetra’s right as they crossed a yet another weird Remnant river-like thing. When Vetra looked up, she indeed saw the Hyperion ahead of them. Thanks to all the work the Initiative had put into it, the ship was starting to blend into Meridian more and more, but it was still completely alien technology; it would probably always stand out at least a little bit.

“Any idea where we should start looking for a control panel?” Liam asked.

“There should be a few that are easily accessed near the cargo hold, considering that’s the most recent place they’ve started modifying,” Vetra pondered.

“Sounds good,” Drack nodded. “Lead the way.”

After a quick glance over her shoulder, making sure that Gil and the others were still following, Vetra continued to lead the team to the Hyperion. Gil had kept up with the usual ground team surprisingly well; perhaps he was in better shape than Vetra had realized. _Either that, or he’s just really good at faking it._

“Guys,” Liam suddenly whispered, staring at something on their left. “Is that…?”

“What? I don’t see anything,” Drack grunted, but Liam kept on pointing at something. As Vetra walked over to him, she saw what had him so shocked. It was a piece of Initiative armor stuck in the Remnant goo, but not just any Initiative armor. That was Ryder’s armor – or the chest piece of it, anyway.

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Liam muttered, and Vetra swallowed.

“It’s definitely Ryder’s. Even the scratch from that one Architect fight is still there.”

“Does that mean the kid is here?” Drack wondered. “Because if she is, that might complicate things.”

“Well, either Sara is here now, or she has been here at some point,” Vetra sighed. “Let’s hope for the latter, for all our sakes.”

“Everything alright?” Cora’s voice suddenly asked, and Vetra realized Squad Omega had caught up with them during the armor staring. Vetra didn’t even get a chance to say anything before the others had seen the chest piece as well.

“Sara,” Jaal whispered.

“Try not to think about it,” Liam sighed.

“Think we could learn anything from the armor if we bring it with us?” Cora asked, looking at Gil.

“Maybe,” he admitted. “I mean, the Remnant stuff has probably done things to it, but there are bits that look intact. Suvi and I could take a look.”

“We’ll fish it out then,” Cora said and turned back to Vetra. “You guys keep going. We’ll catch up with you soon.”

“Understood,” Vetra nodded and started heading towards the Hyperion once again. However, the team mood had suddenly gone from excited and hopeful to grim and depressed once again. Vetra hoped Ryder was alright wherever she was, but she also hoped that ‘wherever’ wasn’t on the Hyperion. She didn’t want to fight Sara, and she didn’t want to see anyone else go through what had happened to Peebee. _Please, please let luck be on our side for once._

 

 

“I got it!” Peebee yelled – or tried to yell with her throat still hurting a bit – as she sprinted down the halls of the Tempest. “Guys, I got – Where is everyone?”

The cargo bay where everyone should have been prepping for the mission was empty, save for Lexi, who was apparently going through their supply of medical equipment.

“The ground team left two hours ago,” Lexi told her. “They should be nearing the Hyperion as we speak.”

“But… but… I have to get this to them!” Peebee sputtered, waving the ML Box in her hands. “The whole point was… I’ve been awake for almost 35 hours just to get this thing ready in time!”

“You managed to make sense of the ML Box?” Lexi asked with wide eyes, and Peebee grinned.

“Of course. Well, not in a sense that’ll fix Ryder, that one is still a work in progress, but in a sense that’ll keep Ryder from hurting us again!”

Lexi frowned. “Tell me you’re not planning to turn Ryder into a vegetable.”

“What? Of course not! What kind of monster do you think I am? But remember how Gil said the original L Box signal that affects biotics is still in here in the modified version? And then remember how I tried to use biotic restrainers on Ryder back on Voeld but got choked instead? Actually, you probably don’t remember that since you weren’t there, but anyway. And _then_ remember how you told me there are other ways I can be of use? But replace ‘me’ with the original L Box and biotic restrainers!”

Lexi was starting to look more and more concerned with every word that came out of Peebee’s mouth. “Peebee, you’re not making any sense. You should go to sleep before you – “

“I’ll go to sleep as soon as the team has this box! Ryder won’t be able to throw us around again with her biotics because this –,” Peebee held up the ML Box, “is now a biotic restrainer instead of a horrible thing that turns people into vegetables!”

Now Lexi looked honestly surprised, and Peebee couldn’t help but grin even wider. “… How? How is that even possible?”

“Oh, it was pretty simple in the end, just mess around with the original frequency and use the same kind of tech you have in actual biotic restrainers in order to – “

“You created a signal version of a physical object and call it _simple_?”

“Sure. But the important thing right now is to get this to the ground team before they run into Ryder again! So how do we do that?”

“Well… Cora and Jaal are supposed to escort Gil back here after he’s dealt with the fire alarm, so – “

“So we’ll just have to wait until then. Great,” Peebee nodded excitedly and handed Lexi the ML Box. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I can’t feel my brain anymore, so I’ll just pass out until then.”

 

 

Drack wasn’t a huge fan of sitting in cover when there were things that needed to be done, but he knew that running mindlessly into battle would ruin this mission. The ground team had finally reached the Hyperion and even found the spot where Vetra thought they could trigger the fire alarm, but the place was unfortunately guarded by the kett. It wasn’t exactly a heavy guard, though, so they probably weren’t expecting an attack, but still, the Tempest squad would have to take care of them without alerting anyone else.

“You know, it’s times like this I wish we had an assassin or something,” Liam sighed. Squad Alpha and Squad Omega had regrouped behind a Remnant construct they were now using as cover, and while Drack was keeping an eye on the kett in front of the Hyperion, the others were doing most of the planning.

“We have Jaal,” Vetra noted, but Jaal shook his head.

“There’s too many. I won’t be able to take them all out at once and the others will sound the alarm.”

“Isn’t Cora kind of an assassin too?” Gil asked, and Cora made a strange noise.

“I was a part of an asari commando unit, but yes, kind of, when necessary.”

“Would a coordinated attack work?” Jaal asked, but before Cora could answer, Drack cut in.

“No. There’s practically no cover on the left side. One of you would get either get caught or blow the other’s cover.”

“Well what do we do then?” Liam snapped, and both Cora and Vetra rushed to hush him. “Sorry, but we didn’t come this far only to be stopped at the front door! Or back door, or whatever this place – ”

“Wait,” Gil interrupted. “Vetra, the modification work on the Hyperion. Some of the sensors have to be exposed, right?”

“I suppose so. Why?”

“Is someone willing to suffer a minor electric shock for the mission?” Gil asked, and Drack knew there was only one answer to that question.

“Seems like a perfect job for a krogan. What do I have to do?”

“Let me have a look at your omni-tool,” Gil said, and Drack held out his arm for him. Gil worked on the tiny computer for a moment before nodding with what Drack thought was a pretty smug grin. “There. Now touch any part of the Hyperion without being seen by the kett and watch the magic happen.”

Drack took a quick glance to their right, and though the krogan weren’t exactly known for their mastery of stealth, the storage crates and Remnant constructs offered enough cover for him to extend his arm and touch the hull of the Hyperion. The “electric shock” Gil had mentioned barely felt like anything in Drack’s opinion, but apparently it worked all the same. There was a sound that resembled a wire getting fried, and suddenly there was a warning light flickering on one of the monitors. As the kett stormed over to the check what was wrong, they definitely suffered more than just a minor electric shock and fell unconscious to the ground. _Now this whole place smells like a bad barbeque_.

“Please tell me that happened all over the Hyperion,” Liam muttered in awe as the team got out of cover now that the coast was clear.

“Nah, it was only a local malfunction. We still need to trigger the fire alarm to clear the rest of the ship,” Gil explained as he made his way to the same monitor that had just fried the kett.

“Maybe we should bring you along more often, kid,” Drack snorted, and Gil laughed in response.

“What can I say? Engineers are useful every now and then.” Gil flicked his omni-tool over the previously ‘malfunctioning’ monitor and turned to look at the rest of the team. “Right, so… once I do this, the kett _will_ start running from the Hyperion. Everyone ready?”

“Do it,” Cora nodded, and Gil turned his attention back to the monitor. After a short while, there were alarms going off all over the Hyperion, and that was their cue. As Cora and Jaal began to escort Gil back to safety, Drack joined Liam and Vetra and started their infiltration of the Hyperion.


	12. Hyperion

Liam was almost surprised by how well their plan to infiltrate the Hyperion had worked so far. The fire alarm that Gil had triggered had indeed caused a ship-wide panic, and while the kett were scrambling to evacuate, it was easy for Squad Alpha to slip in undetected. As the team had agreed earlier, Liam, Vetra, and Drack began their investigation from the launch bay. So far they hadn’t seen anything too strange; sure, there was kett equipment everywhere and the place wasn’t exactly clean either, but other than that, things seemed to be pretty much the same as before the takeover. Sadly, that also meant they had seen no sign of Scott, either. But the launch bay was only a part of the ship, and they still had plenty of space to go through.

“Some of the smaller ships are missing,” Vetra noted as she went through the ship logs on one of the consoles. “But I guess that makes sense. The kett don’t seem the type to let anything go to waste.”

“Anyone else think this is kinda creepy?” Liam wondered out loud. “This emptiness, I mean. An entire ark and we’re the only people in it. Like a ghost town or something. Or a ghost ship, I guess.”

“That won’t last forever,” Drack reminded him. “The kett will figure out our plan at some point. We can’t waste any time.”

“You’re right,” Vetra sighed and stepped away from the console. “Let’s keep going. The residential area is next, right?”

“Yeah, that way,” Liam nodded towards the door on the right. They all grabbed their guns just in case before stepping into the next area but put them back down again once that turned out to be empty as well. _Still nothing out of the ordinary. However…_ “If we go through here, we should get to the SAM node eventually, but…”

“Is that smart? Even these discs, we might get caught,” Drack pointed out.

“Looks like we don’t get to decide that,” Vetra suddenly announced and kicked the next door in front of them. It didn’t budge. “Sealed tight. We won’t be going through here. The SAM node is out of the question for now, apparently.”

Liam frowned. “Shouldn’t that be impossible during a fire alarm? Sealing doors and all that?”

“If we’re really up against an AI, I’m not sure you can call anything impossible,” Drack muttered.

“Point taken. Okay then, change of plans. If we can’t go through here, we’ll just have to… Hmm. Anyone else smell that?”

Both Vetra and Drack turned to look at Liam. “Smell what?”

“I… I’m not sure.” Liam made a face. The smell was like… like your neighbor hadn’t taken the trash out in a month. He could kind of smell it, but he knew it would get a lot worse if he got closer. “I think it’s coming from… From the mess hall? That way is to the mess hall, I think?”

Drack grunted. “Some of the kett stayed behind to cook?”

_There’s a mental image_. “Guess we’ll see soon enough. Come on guys, we – “

As Liam tried to open the door to the mess hall, it turned out to be sealed as well, much like the one that led to the SAM node.

“Dammit,” he snapped. “I want to see what’s in there. That smell is not normal.”

“Could be something important if this door has been sealed as well,” Vetra agreed. “Is there a way around?”

“Well, yeah, on the other side, but what if that door is locked as well?”

“Only one way to find out,” Drack decided, and after a moment of hesitation, Liam nodded. _Whether that smell is the kett version of lunch or something else, we have to find out._

 

 

Gil hadn’t really been struggling to keep up with the others on their way to the Hyperion, but the way back to the Tempest was a different story. Not only were they trying to outrun the evacuating kett, they were also trying to do it in a way that would still keep their presence on the planet a secret. Cora and Jaal seemed to have no trouble: they were jumping over Remnant rivers and gliding through those weird transportation devices like it was nothing new. Then again, it probably _was_ nothing new to them, considering that they’d been running from purification fields and whatnot for the past year while being shot at. But Gil hadn’t. This was definitely new to him, but he did his best to keep up, no matter how bad his legs were starting to cramp.

“Is it… much farther?” Gil tried very hard not to pant too much as they reached a yet another Remnant transportation thing.

“No, the way back is much shorter since we know all the tricks now,” Cora said, motioning towards all the Remnant stuff around them.

“Are you alright, Gil?” Jaal asked. “You seem to have trouble breathing.”

“It’s… fine. Really. Just… not everyone runs around foreign planets for a living.”

Cora snorted. “This is actually a lot easier than normally. No deadly traps or murderous robots chasing after us.”

“It’s true,” Jaal nodded. “You’re very lucky, Gil.”

“You’re all weird,” Gil puffed in response.

It turned out Cora had been right; after a few more minutes of running, Gil could already see the Tempest waiting for them. It seemed almost too good to be true. _Did we really get to the Hyperion and back without being seen? Has our luck finally turned around?_ Apparently it had, since the cargo bay door opened and Peebee and Lexi walked out to meet the ground team, and not a single kett showed up to murder them all.

“Peebee,” Cora called, taking off her helmet for a second. “Are you – “

“I made a thing!” Peebee grinned happily, practically shoving what looked like the ML Box at Cora. “I modified it. It’s a biotic restrainer now. If you run into Sara again, just press this button here and it’ll disable her biotics!”

Cora, Gil, and Jaal all stared at Peebee with wide eyes as she just continued to smile happily. _The ML Box is what now?_

“Are you… are you sure?” Jaal eventually broke the silence. “It won’t hurt her?”

“Absolutely!” Peebee assured them. “Well, I mean, obviously I haven’t gotten a chance to test it, but there’s nothing in it that’s supposed to hurt anyone!”

“It affects just Ryder?” Cora asked. “Not anyone else? I won’t disable my own biotics in the process if I use it?”

“No, I did my best to sync it only with Ryder’s implant, so everyone else should be fine.”

Cora frowned a little. “ _Should_?”

Peebee made a face. “Well, like I said, it hasn’t been tested, so, uh, just be careful. Have a shotgun ready in case your biotics do go offline after all?”

“But… How did you even…?” Gil was completely speechless. “It’s been like a day since you… I don’t… And it’s…”

Peebee winked at him. “Handy to have a tech expert who is also a biotic, huh?”

“I’ll say,” Gil snorted. “You’ll have to tell me everything later.”

“’Later’ being the operative word,” Cora sighed and put her helmet back on. “Jaal and I still have a mission to get back to. Still, excellent work, Peebee. This should help us a lot.”

“Are any of you hurt?” Lexi asked while Peebee continued to beam, and the entire squad shook their heads. “Good. Then – “

“Wait,” Jaal suddenly whispered, frowning as if he’d just noticed something, but before anyone could ask him about it, he yelled: “Get down!”

Gil’s body reacted faster than this mind did, and he thanked every god for that; just as he dove down, he heard gunshots somewhere behind them. Far too close behind them.

“Is it the kett?” Gil gasped. “Did they find us after all?”

“That’s not a kett gun,” Jaal muttered, already getting back up on his feet with rifle in hand. “It’s – “

“Initiative,” Cora finished for him. “Human, to be precise.”

As Cora and Jaal stormed to battle, Gil made the mistake of looking over his shoulder. There, on top of one of the Remnant structures, was indeed a very human-looking soldier in the white Initiative armor. _Why are they… The betrayal goes this deep? They actually want to kill us?_ There were probably others nearby as well, but Gil didn’t have the pleasure of counting before the attackers opened fire on them again.

“Get inside!” Cora yelled, already glowing purple thanks to her biotics. “Jaal and I will handle this!”

Gil glanced at the small sidearm on his waist. Cora had given it to him prior to this mission in case of emergencies, but he also knew that Cora was the one in charge in Ryder’s absence. If she told them to get inside, he should probably obey and not get in the way with his not-so-tested marksman skills. So, Gil settled to nodding and heading to the cargo bay with Lexi. Peebee, on the other hand, seemed to have no intention of sitting on the sidelines.

“I can help!” she announced, also glowing purple as she ran after Cora and Jaal.

“Peebee, no, you can’t – “ Lexi tried to stop her, but it was too late. Peebee had already dragged the high-ground assailant to the ground with her biotics, slamming them with enough force to at least knock them out. Meanwhile Cora had already taken out two similarly dressed soldiers, and Jaal had disappeared somewhere. If they had been fast runners, they definitely weren’t slow when it came to combat, either. By the time Gil finally had the guts to leave the Tempest again, there were four bodies on the ground, and Jaal had rejoined the group with a new bloodstain on his armor.

“Humans, all four,” Cora confirmed with a sigh, answering the question no one wanted to ask.

“Did you get any of them alive?” Jaal asked, and Peebee nodded towards the one she had pulled over with her biotics.

“That one should be. Well, unconscious, but still alive. I think.”

“Peebee, you’re not cleared for combat!” Lexi followed Gil out of the Tempest, practically fuming as she glared at Peebee. “What were you thinking? You could have – “

Peebee just shrugged. “I helped and I didn’t pull a muscle in my brain. It’s fine. Anyways, I think we have bigger problems right now.”

“She’s right,” Cora nodded. “Peebee, Lexi, Gil, search the three bodies for any clues about their identity and tie the fourth one up for questioning. Jaal and I have to check the perimeter to see if there are more of them.”

“We should hurry,” Jaal said. “We can’t let them catch us off guard again, or we risk this entire mission.”

 

 

When Liam, Vetra, and Drack finally reached the other mess hall door, they had already gone through three different areas of the ship and still seen no sign of Scott – no sign of the kett either, though, which was nice. Still, as they got closer to the mess hall, Liam could feel the strange smell getting stronger again. There was nothing familiar about it, so he was fairly sure it had something to do with the kett, but what could smell like that?

“Moment of truth,” Vetra mumbled as they stepped towards the door, hoping it hadn’t been sealed like the other one. As they all held their breaths, the door did in fact open in front of them. Liam wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but…

“What the actual hell,” Liam whispered when he saw the source of the smell. The place definitely didn’t look like a mess hall anymore; it didn’t even look like something that belonged on a spaceship in the first place. Electricity had apparently been cut, but there was still a shimmering light coming from somewhere between these strange… boxes? They looked like boxes, except they looked like they were alive. Or something. They were greenish and covered in strange wire-looking vines and there were gross dark pools gathering around some of them. It smelled horrific up close, like someone had forgotten an entire truck full of milk in sunlight. There was also a strange hum in the air, barely noticeable, and Liam didn’t want to think about where it was coming from. _So this is why the rest of the ship looked so normal. They’ve gathered all the weirdness here._

“Why the mess hall?” Drack growled, snapping Liam out of his thoughts. “Why the one place where people go to eat has to look like kett guts?”

“Maybe the kett don’t need to eat?” Liam mused. “Repurpose the place you don’t need?”

“What _is_ this?” Vetra muttered in shock as she tried to scan one of the boxes. “I can’t get any readings at all. I can’t even tell if it’s organic or not.”

“We could try shooting them,” Drack offered, but Liam shook his head.

“Let’s, uh, call that plan B. I mean, who knows what’s inside those things. Definitely smells like it would be poisonous. But you guys see that light? Where’s that coming from?”

Suddenly there was a loud bang, and the entire trio went on full alert, raising their weapons and checking their surroundings – but to no avail. There was no one else there as far as Liam could tell.

“Okay, now wha – ” he was about to ask when he heard a yet another bang, this time much louder.

“Is someone there? I can hear you, and I can understand you! Please, I’m over here! Get me out, I’m begging you! Unless you’re kett, in which case you can just keep ignoring me!”

The trio turned to look at each other.

“Is that…?” Vetra whispered.

“Scott!” Liam yelled and began running past the boxes. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Liam?! I’m here, with the weird purple light, in the middle of these green things! And I’m fine, mostly, except for – “

“You’re locked up,” Liam concluded when he found Scott and his weird purple light, Vetra and Drack right at his heel.

“Yup,” Scott sighed. Scott Ryder, the person they’d been unable to find since this whole mess had started, was finally standing in front of them. He was still in his white Initiative clothes, but judging from the way they looked, Scott had been locked up for a while. He was inside a containment cell of some sort: the walls would have been all but invisible without the purple light they casted. Liam couldn’t see a door or a switch or anything, and that worried him. Still, besides everything, Scott didn’t look too broken – not suffering from starvation or lack of oxygen – so there had to be some way inside.

“You alright, kid?” Drack asked, nodding slightly at Scott, who sighed again.

“Yeah. In serious need of a shower and a proper meal, but not injured or anything. But man, am I glad to see you guys. It’s been nothing but kett for… I don’t even know how long.”

“They took you captive when they took over?” Liam guessed, but Scott made a face.

“Not exactly, but that’s a long story. We should probably get out of here first before the kett show up again.”

“What is that thing?” Vetra pointed at the cage, again trying to find some answers with her scanner.

“A cell of some sort,” Scott said. “I don’t know what it’s made of, but I think air can go through it since I haven’t suffocated yet. But the purple light is creepy.”

“How do we open it?” Drack was definitely asking the right questions here.

“I have no idea,” Scott admitted. “When I came back to my senses, I was already in here. No one has touched the cage ever since. But there must be something, right? Otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten me in here in the first place.”

“Look for a switch or a control panel or something,” Liam said to the others and began inspecting the cage himself as well. “By them you mean the kett?”

Scott looked at him incredulously. “Yeah, who else?”

“We’re worried about an inside job,” Vetra explained as she examined the space around the cage. “But that can wait for now. Do you know what’s happened to Sara?”

“Yeah,” Scott mumbled. “She’s – I’ve seen her a few times. It’s not her, you know it isn’t, right? It’s SAM, he’s taken over her body.”

“Yeah, so we thought,” Liam nodded. “Any idea how we stop all this?”

“Maybe,” Scott actually admitted, just like Sara had promised them, and the entire team turned to look at him. “But it’s a long shot, and it’s an even longer shot if I don’t get out of this cage.”

“I don’t see anything that resembles a lock,” Drack muttered.

“Keep looking,” Liam said before raising his omni-tool. _Time to break the radio silence_. “I’ll tell Cora we found Scott. As soon as I call her, the kett will probably swarm us, so be ready. Okay, here goes…”

“Liam?” Cora answered immediately. “What have you found?”

“We got Scott. Well, almost, anyway. He’s locked up, but we’re working on it.”

“You – Good. Great. We’re – shit, not again. I have to go. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous. Cora out.”

And with that, she was gone.

“Sounded like trouble,” Drack stated the obvious. He’d left the cage mystery to Vetra and turned to face the door, waiting for the inevitable kett ambush.

“Yeah,” Liam agreed sourly. “Lots of trouble.”

 

 

The guy Peebee had slammed to the ground with a Pull was indeed still alive, albeit unconscious, after Cora and Jaal had left again. All the commotion had also drawn Suvi and Kallo to the scene, and they were just as shocked as everyone else once they saw the attackers were Initiative and not kett.

“We… have a prisoner now?” Suvi swallowed as Peebee and Gil were tying their sole survivor up.

“Apparently so,” Gil sighed. “Alright, let’s see who’s in here.”

Gil took off the attacker’s helmet and revealed a human woman with red hair and a long scar on her right cheek. Peebee thought she looked fairly young, but then again, she’d never been that good at guessing human ages.

“Anyone recognize her?” Peebee asked, but everyone shook their heads.

“We should search for dog tags or something, like Cora suggested,” Gil said. “On this one and… the bodies.”

“I can’t believe we were attacked by the Initiative,” Suvi muttered as everyone got to work. “I mean, I know we’ve talked about the betrayal before, but still. This is…”

“Feels more real,” Gil agreed. “Like literal backstabbing.”

“Kinda like during the Nexus uprising,” Peebee offered more or less helpfully, earning a sigh from Kallo and a grimace from Gil.

“Isn’t it strange they are all human?” Lexi pointed out. “It could mean something, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Gil nodded. “So, should our main suspect be Addison instead of Tann if we’re going by the whole human thing?”

“I think we should be wary of all of them at this point,” Kallo mumbled, and Peebee couldn’t help but agree with him. _They’re all shady in their own way_.

“Speculations aside, I don’t see any kind of ID on this one,” Suvi said, crouching over one of the bodies. “And the scanner is all but useless without SAM.”

“Same here,” Gil sighed. “Guess they were prepared for something like this and didn’t want to risk anything.”

“Everyone,” Lexi suddenly called. “I think our prisoner is waking up.”

That definitely got everyone’s attention, and when Peebee turned around, the red-haired human was indeed groaning on the ground. As they all gathered around her, she opened her eyes and groaned some more.

“Good morning,” Peebee said cheerfully, kneeling down next to the woman. “You weren’t out for long. Thanks for that. Now, care to answer some questions?”

The woman made an odd sound that was something between a gurgle and a chuckle. “You say that like I have a choice.”

“My bad. We – “

“Who are you?” Gil cut in, sounding far angrier than he usually was. _Must be the firefight getting on his nerves. Gil hasn’t gone through too many of those before. I think. Hopefully it’s just the nerves._ “Why did you attack us?”

The woman made that weird noise again before mumbling: “S3 Command X.”

Peebee frowned. “What?”

“Is that… Peebee, get back!” Lexi yelled, practically pushing Peebee away from the woman just a moment before an electric current ran through the woman’s entire body, killing her instantly and making the whole place smell like fried metal. Peebee gaped at smoking body with her mouth agape, trying to mutter a thanks of some sort to Lexi despite the shock. _I’ve never seen so many electrical burns at once. Why would she… That must have hurt like hell. And I was nearly… I was nearly touching her!_

“What… what was that?” Kallo gasped, but all Peebee could do was blink.

“Something akin to a self-destruct sequence installed on an omni-tool,” Lexi explained as she got back up on her feet. “I saw a few of them back when I lived on Omega. Is everyone alright?”

“Fine,” Suvi mumbled, sounding a bit dazed, and everyone else managed something that resembled a nod or a ‘yes’ as well. “But… but how can an omni-tool even…”

“Must have overwritten all safety measures or something,” Gil speculated, and Peebee nodded, finally remembering how to speak.

“At the very least. That’s some serious modding.”

“I… She killed herself,” Kallo muttered, still staring at the woman. “She killed herself just to avoid being questioned.”

“Sounds like something from an action film,” Suvi whispered.

“Dammit.” Peebee kicked the ground as she got back up. Now that the shock was starting to wear off, she just felt angry. “We really could have used that intel.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure now, at least,” Gil said. “These guys are obviously willing to do almost anything to keep their mission going, whatever it is.”

 

 

“Vetra!” Drack yelled as he slammed his shotgun against the next kett trying to get into the room. “Is the kid out yet?”

“Not yet!” Vetra yelled back, and Drack had just enough time to reload his gun before the next wave of enemies came at him. “I need more time!”

“There’s only so much time only the two of us can give you!” Liam snapped, overloading the shields of a kett Anointed so that Drack could send it flying with his shotgun.

Much like Drack, Liam, and Vetra had suspected, the kett had all but swarmed them a few minutes after Liam had broken the radio silence and informed Cora of their findings. At first it had been just a squad or two, nothing Drack couldn’t handle, but their numbers just kept on increasing, and eventually Liam had been forced to join the defense effort as well, leaving only Vetra to deal with the cage that Scott was in – the cage that still refused to open, no matter what they did.

“Overload it,” Scott pleaded somewhere behind Drack and Liam. “Do it, Vetra. We don’t have time for this. Just overload the whole thing.”

“That could fry you as well!” Vetra protested, and Drack headbutted one kett trying to get too close to them.

“I have biotics, I can shield myself, just do it before you all get killed!”

“If the kid says he can do it, then he can do it,” Drack yelled when he didn’t hear a response from Vetra. “Trust him.”

“I’m with Drack!” Liam agreed after he tried to reload his rifle but got interrupted by a kett and ended up just kicking it in the face. “Vetra, we can’t hold this door much longer, seriously!”

“Alright, alright! Ready, Scott? Here goes!” Vetra shouted, and Drack expected an ear-shattering explosion or something. But no, the only thing that did happen was the lights in the mess hall turning on again, and just when Drack suspected the overloading hadn’t worked, Scott started cheering.

“It worked! It actually worked! See, Vetra, I told you! And look, I’m not fried!”

“That’s great, but we have no time to celebrate just yet!” Vetra continued to shout, but she did sound a bit less frantic now. Only a bit, though. “Drack, Liam, how are we getting out of here?”

“We could – “ Liam began, but the rest of the sentence was cut off by the sound of a biotic combo echoing in the hallway and sending the kett that were swarming the door flying. Drack was only kind of surprised to see Cora running towards them a few moments later.

“Cora!” Liam, on the other hand, sounded far more surprised for some reason. “How are you – why are you – “

“Just followed the gunfire,” Cora panted when she eventually reached them. It looked like she’d been running for a while. _Humans. Need more stamina_. “You have Scott?”

“Here!” Scott called, and soon enough the whole team was gathered at the door.

“Thank god,” Cora breathed. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

“Where’s Jaal?” Vetra asked. “Why isn’t he with you?”

Drack wasn’t always sure about humans and their expressions, but Cora definitely looked very pissed all of a sudden. “We’re fighting more than just the kett now. Jaal and I were chasing after some Initiative soldiers that attacked us when – “

“The Initiative attacked us?” Liam gasped.

“Yes, or no, humans at least, not kett, but we can talk about that later. I came running when you said you’d found Scott, and Jaal is holding them off all on his own. The Tempest should be on its way, or at least I called for an evac. Come on, we have to get to the launch bay. Scott, can you walk?”

Scott waved her off. “Forget walking, we’re running. Just lead the way.”

“The kett will be back soon,” Drack reminded them, and Cora nodded.

“Exactly. Drack, you and I will take point. Vetra and Liam, it’s up to you to keep Scott safe. Now let’s go!”

 

 

Jaal was definitely no beginner when it came to impossible missions after all the years he’d spent with the Resistance and then on the Tempest. Still, as he was dodging gunfire, jumping over Remnant structures, and trying to get to the Hyperion launch bay before the Tempest did, for some reason he found it really hard to think of the last time the odds has been so against him. Maybe it was because he was alone after all that time of being a part of a team, or because he was up against humans instead of the kett, the usual enemy. Or because he was trying to outrun a spaceship, that could have affected it too.

Jaal and Cora had been right to scout the perimeter after the surprise attack. The people who had attacked the Tempest definitely hadn’t been alone, and it was only a matter of time before they would have found the ship as well. Cora and Jaal had engaged them in combat just moments before Cora had gotten a call from Liam. Scott had been found, but he was locked up. And because Liam had broken the radio silence, the kett would find them sooner rather than later. Cora and Jaal had agreed that the other squad needed more firepower to protect Scott and splitting up had been the best choice, but still… Now it was up to Jaal to handle the human attackers while also running to the rendezvous point.

_The kett ships shouldn’t be on the lookout now that they think we’re on the Meridian already, but still… The Tempest has to make it. We have to get out of here alive and take Scott with us. This is the first step to saving Sara._

Jaal’s only real advantage was that he apparently knew the Meridian better than the attackers did. Every time he took a quick turn or jumped down to a lower level, he had the upper hand for a second and was able to fire his rifle without giving the attackers the chance to retaliate. He’d taken out quite a few of them already, but there were still too many chasing him.

_If they really haven’t spent as much time running around Meridian as we have, then maybe…_

Jaal could already see the Hyperion in front of him, and he could also hear gunfire coming from the launch bay. The other squad must have gotten there already, and Jaal didn’t want to make them to fight two groups of enemies if the Tempest wasn’t there yet. So, he decided to take a gamble. He stopped. He turned around. He watched as the humans chasing him lifted their guns. They prepared to shoot, and as they did, they automatically slowed down. That was enough to get five, six, maybe even seven of them to a small enough area, and just when Jaal felt the first bullets clashing against his shields, he threw a grenade at the group and dove to safety. The next time he looked back, there were no more hostile humans in sight. _Guess they don’t know all angaran tricks yet_.

As Jaal neared the rendezvous point, he saw Cora and Drack smashing their way through a small army of the kett. He tried to call for them, but the rumbling of a spaceship drowned out his voice. When Jaal looked up, the Tempest was already above them, nearing the launch bay. Now they all just needed to get on and this mission could actually be called a success after the horrible failure on Voeld.

The Hyperion launch bay had already been sort of melded with the Meridian, making it more like a port rather than a launch bay. In practice, that meant less walls than before, and less walls meant that when the kett finally spotted Jaal, he was faced with just as much gunfire as Cora and Drack. But it also meant that the Tempest team had been reunited again, and Jaal no longer needed to be a one-man army. As Jaal distracted the kett with another grenade, Cora was able to blast them with her biotics, and Drack finished them off with his shotgun. _Well, this group, anyway. There’s still plenty left._

“Jaal,” Liam’s voice called from the left, and when Jaal turned around, he noticed that Scott was indeed with the team. It was a surreal feeling after all the horrors they had gone through lately, but the best kind of surreal. “Glad you could make it, buddy.”

“We’re not out of danger yet!” Cora yelled before Jaal could answer. “To the Tempest, now! Drack and I will cover you! Go!”

As if on cue, the Tempest landed with a soft thump, and the cargo bay door opened. The exhaustion from all the running he’d done that day was starting to get to Jaal, but he knew this was it, the last push. With the kett firing at them again, and Cora and Drack firing at the kett, Jaal joined Liam, Scott, and Vetra and sprinted to the Tempest. Jaal did feel a few hits on his shields and knew they wouldn’t last much longer, but that didn’t matter at this point. As soon as their feet touched the metal of the ship, Liam called to Cora and Drack, and they both practically leaped on board with their jump-jets. The kett tried to follow, naturally, but Jaal slammed the door shut right in front of them. A few seconds later he felt the ship taking off, and once they were sure no one was firing at them anymore or the engine wasn’t on fire or no one was dying, the team simply stared at each other in shock, as if even breathing too loudly would have broken the spell.

“We did it,” Vetra eventually muttered, her voice a mixture of awe and relief. “We actually pulled that off.”

“I know,” Liam breathed and turned to Scott with a huge smile on his face. “Welcome aboard, Scott. You have no idea how happy we are to finally have you here.”


End file.
